Chapter 1 : The Truth about the Devil

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

“Lying! You are lying!”

Liola yelled desperately, but the Leader glanced at him with disdain. His face was filled with impatience, while the questions Liola had suppressed in his heart had now all surfaced.

Liola reached his hand into his pocket and held tightly onto the letter Anise had left behind. Even when the Leader beat him up to the point of being severely injured, Liola didn’t feel as much pain as he did now.

Could it be that Anise, the person who had always been his emotional support, only appeared before him because he was the Dragon Emperor’s son? Was… it the reason why she accompanied him? And asked him to look for her?

Was everything Anise did all just to take him away from the organization, and send him back to the world he came from?

Liola sank into black world as he thought. In his mind, the imagery of Anise’s smile began to crack, because Liola’s faith was slowly collapsing…

Seeing Liola losing control, Kaiser acted strangely calm. He asked with conviction, “Who are you to say Anise was fake?”

As soon as he asked, the Leader immediately disappeared then appeared inches away from Kaiser’s face. His suddenly enlarged blue eyes surprised Kaiser, and the Leader said with a cold tone of voice,

“Don’t think for a moment you have the right to question me. In my eyes, you’re absolutely nothing!”

Kaiser’s heart sank, knowing the Leader was only stating the truth. The Leader was beating Liola for fun, whom could be on even footing with all the rank-X people. Kaiser wondered if the Leader even needed to pout to kill him.

“But your story was pretty good, and I never lie. Since I agreed to tell you, I won’t take back my words.”

The Leader blinked again, returning to his previous position. As the distance between them grew, the fear Kaiser felt lessened. His mouth had turned reckless again as a result,

“Then tell me? Even if I die, at least let me die in peace.”

The Leader laughed for a while, then said as if he were peerless, “I am the legendary Gle!”

‘Gle!’ This word struck Kaiser like lightning.

Kaiser’s usual never-ending mouth couldn’t even speak a single syllable. His mouth was wide open as he stared at this stubborn pants who looked like a spoiled rich kid…

‘Could he really be the terrifying and infamous devil Gle?’

And unfortunately, could he really be Kaiser’s ancestor?

Seeing Kaiser’s mouth hanging, the Leader… who should now be called Gle, felt quite happy. Despite having left for hundreds of years, but it looked like his fame hadn’t diminished.

“Y-you are Gle?” After being stunned for a long time, Kaiser finally asked with a stutter. His facial expression was quite strange: it was neither fear nor admiration.

Gle saw his strange face, and began to feel curious. He replied, “Yes, I am Gle.”

Kaiser’s face turned even more strange. He thought, doesn’t it mean this guy would’ve been something like a grandpa to him? He looked at Gle’s twenty-five-ish face, and Kaiser’s face looked almost like a clown. Was he supposed to call this Mr. Stubborn Pants… Grandpa?

“What? If you don’t say something soon, I’m going to kill you.”

Gle got angrier by the minute as he looked at Kaiser’s face. He thought, no matter which world this person was from, he should either fear or revere him. But this little runt kept talking back at him, and now after hearing his name, he dared to have his mouth twitching? It made him more and more furious.

Gle didn’t know how to react. Could there be someone so shameless that, in order to save his own skin, he’d be willing to recognize anyone as his grandfather?

Seeing Kaiser running towards him, Gle reached out his foot, which accurately landed on Kaiser’s face, whose flattering noises immediately turned into a moan. Kaiser grabbed his face and rolled around on the ground.

Gle grunted coldly, “Shameless kid.”

Kaiser rolled for a long while before he got up, and a shoe print was clearly visible on his face. Kaiser complained, “I truly am your descendent. My full name is Kaigleser.”

“Nonsense!” Gle would never believe the lying little runt in front of him. He naturally thought Kaiser was calling him grandpa only because he was afraid of dying.

Kaiser felt really awkward. Although he had lied quite a number of times and it wasn’t rare for him to suddenly call people grandpa or brother, he was actually telling the truth for a change, but it was obviously mistaken to be a lie. Kaiser rolled his eye, and began to laugh. He walked and held up the giant gun in his hands,

“Grandpa, look, isn’t this yours? Look, there’s your whimsical signature at the bottom of this handle.”

But before he finished, he frowned, and asked suspiciously, “How did you know it was my signature?”

Gle’s handwriting wasn’t something normal people understood. At a glance, it was no different from random graffiti. When one examined it further, even graffiti would look better than his handwriting.

Back then, Gle had quite a number of apprentices, but very few of them were actually powerful. The reason was because, despite Gle’s love of getting new apprentices, he had very little patience to teach them. He had often said a few words, threw them a book about magic, then they never heard from him again.

If Gle’s handwriting was better, then it would’ve been fine. A Magician could probably do reasonably well if they could follow a properly written magic book.

However, Gle’s handwriting was near impossible to read for normal people, and he hated anyone who would call his handwriting ugly, so no one dared to ask what he had written. Besides, Gle often came and left without a trace, so even someone dared to ask, they couldn’t have found him to do so.

Kaiser scratched his head. How should he explain? He could just understand… What’s more was even Kaiser’s own handwriting was terrible, so much so it could match Gle’s, and it looked vaguely similar.

Under Gle’s impatient and suspicious eyes, along with Ki on his left hand and magic on his right, Kaiser had to explain honestly, “I was suspicious at first too. But using this gun, I found your house, and after looking through a bunch of notes about magic, I confirmed it was your name.”

“My house?” Gle looked surprised. If he remembered correctly, the supposed house of his was protected under a very powerful magic field. The only people who could enter was he himself… or someone with his bloodline.

Gle began to carefully examine Kaiser. He saw his blue eyes, and thought it looked a bit like a ruffian’s. A head of green hair… it looked quite like his own eldest daughter’s.

Thinking about his daughter, even the irresponsible Gle couldn’t help but feel guilty. He hadn’t seen her again after she turned fifteen. So ever since he had a younger daughter, Yasha, he spoiled her quite a bit, perhaps he poured his love for his eldest daughter into her as well.

So could this little gangster-looking punk really be his own descendent? Gle’s expression hardened considering he thought of Kaiser as a weak-ass and a loud mouth. He didn’t want to contemplate about it anymore, so grabbed Kaiser’s hand.

With Kaiser’s yell and complaints, he lacerated Kaiser’s palm, then he took a piece of jade hanging from his waist and forced Kaiser to hold it in his palm.

“What are you doing?” Kaiser was shocked and yelled continuously.

Gle examined it briefly, then let go of Kaiser’s hand. He said expressionlessly, “If you’re not related to me by blood, you would be killed by the magic in this piece of jade.”

Hearing Gle’s explanation, Kaiser opened his mouth wide. He looked at his palm, and couldn’t believe he barely missed the gates of hell. Kaiser gulped, then displayed his hooligan smile,

“Hehe, now you finally know I’m your descendent.” Kaiser said as he sat on a chair, completely ignoring Gle’s presence.

Gle’s mouth twitched. This little runt… weak, loved to brag, and talked about nonsense… could he really be his own descendent?

But before Gle yelled, Kaiser glanced at Liola and had already closed his mouth. He saw Liola’s face was expressionless, and he was kicking the unconscious Yandi on the ground.

Kaiser was not familiar with Liola’s current expression, even though he was usually expressionless, but now he seemed… like he was an emotionless puppet. His silver eyes looked like darkened steel.

“Hmmph…”

Yandi moaned on the ground, then struggled to get up. As soon as she raised her head and looked into Liola’s emotionless eyes, her body froze.

She asked timidly, “W-what’s wrong with you?”

“I’m going to find Anise.”

Liola’s response didn’t answer her question, but Yandi knew his nature too well, and she knew Liola’s sudden change in attitude must have something to do with her sister.

Since Yandi’s original goal was to find Anise, she didn’t say anything else. After struggling to stand up, Yandi asked calmly, “Where?”

Liola’s face remained completely emotionless, but night skies filled with stars and trees with circular leaves flashed in his mind. At this time, the Dragon Cross Necklace emitted a slight glow, as if it was trying to comfort its owner.

However, Liola acted as if he was burnt by a fire. He pulled the necklace off, and looked at it emotionlessly. The light on the necklace slowly faded away, and then returned to being a cold necklace.

Liola threw the necklace to Yandi without any hesitation, then turned and headed towards the door, while ignoring Baolilong who was desperately trying to grab ahold of papa’s pants.

Baolilong couldn’t hold back papa, and after fumbling a bit, it ran back to Kaiser, and desperately pointed towards Liola while grabbing Kaiser’s shirt.

Kaiser’s face turned slight, “Liola, where are you going?’

Liola answered without looking back, “To look for Anise.”

He continued to walk outside, and he had already stepped outside of the gate to walk away. Yandi followed after him and anxiously tried to catch up.

* * *

Kaiser grabbed Baolilong and tried to follow, while trying to ignore a certain somebody…

“Freeze.”

Unfortunate, the certain somebody wasn’t used to be ignored. Gle lazily yelled, and Kaiser, despite being already at the gate, had to stop. He was… not at all confident Gle would hesitate to kill him, just because he was his descendent. To prevent himself from dying in the hands of his own grandfather, Kaiser turned around with a bitter face.

“Grandpa, aren’t you planning on stopping Liola? He has gotten away.”

Hearing Kaiser say so, Gle threw a complicated look at Liola’s now faint figure, but in an instant he returned to his arrogant self. He said with disdain, “So what if he walked away?”

“Right, nothing, so I’ll be going too.”

Kaiser hurriedly turned, trying to run after Liola. Nevertheless, the suddenly closed gate told him it wasn’t as simple as he thought. Kaiser held tightly onto Baolilong, who may be his only help at this point, and turned to face the tornado-like Magician.

Facing such a strong devil, Kaiser began to complain, “Why am I so unlucky? It was obviously Liola who was wrong. He’s the Dragon Emperor’s son. Grandpa, aren’t you enemies with the Dragon Emperor? Why would you simply let him go?”

Gle raised his eyebrow, and gave a sinister yet somewhat understanding smile, “Looks like you actually care about your companion.”

“Care?” Kaiser pouted, “Yeah right, I can’t believe he just left me here and ran away by himself. I don’t care, you go and catch him, then come back and beat him up.”

Gle’s blue eyes stared straight at Kaiser, whom had felt a bit uneasy from the stare. Gle began to smile.

He thought this guy’s awkward personality was quite similar to his eldest daughter’s. He was obviously worrying that when Liola finds Anise, he would be dealt an even heavier blow. He wants to stop Liola, but he’s using such an awkward way to stop him.

“Stupid daughter. If you didn’t use this way of expressing yourself, I would’ve came back for you no matter what.”

A bit of never-before-seen loneliness appeared on Gle’s previously arrogant face. As soon as he raised his head, however, he saw Kaiser was tilting his ears and listening carefully to Gle’s own murmurs.

For someone like Gle, no matter what he said, it would definitely be a history-changing gossip. If he were to sell this information to magazines, he could probably make a ton of money, right? Kaiser pulled his ears wide open and drooled while dreaming about money.

“AHH! OWWW!”

Two fingers clipped tightly onto Kaiser’s ears, and then they gave his ears a 180 degree turn, Kaiser yelled in pain as a result. The owner of the fingers, Gle, was looking at Kaiser with a cold face. He was beginning to be suspicious again, could this guy really be his own descendent?!

“Hmmph! How can Gle’s descendent lose to Dragon Emperor’s son?” Gle got angrier as he thought. Wouldn’t it mean he was losing to Dragon Emperor? He seemed to have forgotten the fact that the supposed Dragon Emperor’s son was his own best apprentice.

Using the opportunity, Kaiser “rescued” his ears from Gle’s hands. As he rubbed his ears, Kaiser didn’t forget to ask, “Why do you hate the Dragon Emperor? Is it because he defeated you?”

“Nonsense!”

Fire was shooting out of Gle’s eyes, and pure white flames were burning in his hands. Before Kaiser even had the chance to react, the fire on Gle’s hands grew to the height of a person, and they were thrown directly at Kaiser.

Without knowing Gle would have such a huge response, Kaiser saw he had almost no chance of dodging it, so he ran from being at death’s door to behind Gle.

The flames chasing Kaiser made a 180 degree turn and headed right towards Gle. However, he simply waved his hand without any expression on his face, and the white flames went out like a candle in a hurricane.

Gle’s face was still expressionless. He spun around, planning to continue his attack on Kaiser.

Kaiser saw Gle’s malicious face, and began to yell like a child. Seeing Gle had no plans of stopping, Kaiser had to jump around evasively, trying to dodge the white flames.

Suddenly, something fell onto the ground, an emerald started rolling on the floor. Gle was stunned, and stopped attacking Kaiser. He walked over, picked up the emerald, then seem to have frozen in thought.

“What’s the deal with this guy?”

Lying in the corner of a bed, Kaiser had already been close to admitting to his fate and letting the flames hit him. But he didn’t expect for Gle to suddenly stop and freeze while looking at a gem.

Having survived Gle’s onslaught, Kaiser murmured, “What is he doing? Whatever, as long as I’m still alive it’s fine.”

“Where did you get this?” Gle suddenly asked.

Kaiser was surprised, and he wouldn’t dare to ignore the question, “I found it from Liola.”

When Liola was unconscious, Kaiser found this emerald in Liola’s clothes. Based on his theory that everything Liola owned belonged to him, Kaiser naturally took it for himself. In his mind, since Liola had already forgotten about the emerald, then it must not have been something important to Liola! It would’ve been better to give it to him, because he would carefully treasure the precious jewel.

Interestingly, Kaiser had no idea Maylee gave Liola the jewel and asked for it to be passed onto him. But since Liola treated the gem as unimportant, he had completely forgotten about it.

“Is that so…” Gle’s face seemed to have completely lost the arrogance, leaving only loneliness and nostalgia behind.

He calmly asked himself, “Did Maylee give this to him?”

“Maylee? Do you know her?” Kaiser tilted his head and… he seemed to remember Barbalis called Auntie “Maylee”?

Tenderness could be seen in Gle’s eyes while he stared at the emerald, “She was a lover of mine.”

‘Lovers?’ Kaiser’s mind went blank for a minute.

‘Auntie?’ Kaiser’s mind went blank for another three minutes.

‘Auntie and my ancestor had been together?’ Kaiser’s mind went blank for another ten minutes.

The 180cm, muscular Auntie whose face looked like Schwarzenegger (plus it was jagged), and her explosive hair. With her white apron far too small for her and her pink chrysanthemum skirt, was actually devil Gle’s “old lover”?

The thought of Auntie standing with Gle caused an explosive curse in Kaiser’s mind, which made him dizzy.

He then thought about these people doing it… Gross! It must’ve looked 100x more disgusting than Liola looking like a monster!

“AHH! That’s impossible!” Kaiser grabbed his green hair with both of his hands, and exploded with a yell.

“What’s impossible?” Gle asked with dissatisfaction. He then said with arrogance, “Only a devil like me has the right to be with a peerless beauty like Maylee.”

‘P-E-E-R-L-E-S-S B-E-A-U-T-Y?!?!’ When he thought of Auntie’s look, foam began to ooze out of Kaiser’s mouth, and he looked like he was having a seizure.

The difference in a few hundreds years of age was more than a generation gap between them, their opinions were practically oceans apart! Kaiser cried as he shook his head. He would have never imagined that, a few hundred years ago, Auntie could be considered as a peerless beauty.

“What’s with your face?” Gle tilted his head and glanced at Kaiser.

“N-nothing! Just that Auntie… I mean, Maylee, didn’t s-seem as pretty as before.” Kaiser answered carefully,he didn’t want to play fire dodgeball again.

“Even if she aged, some beauty must have remained.” Gle looked absolutely certain.

“Since Maylee is on Li’s side,” Gle’s expression no longer looked lonely, but instead seemed to go back to his previous arrogance, and even a hint of being sinister seemed to have been added,

“Having the Dragon Emperor killed by his own son, it seems like a pretty good idea.”

Kaiser’s eyes flashed, and asked timidly, “Why do you hate the Dragon Emperor? Is it because he launched a crusade against you, the devil?”

Gle’s angry eyes glanced at Kaiser, then said coldly, “No, so what if he starts a crusade against the devil. I’m a devil he created.”

Hearing this, Kaiser was shocked and asked without thinking, “Why would he create a devil?”

Gle glanced at Kaiser again as if he was looking at an idiot, but because of the emerald in his hands, Gle seemed to have relaxed a bit and he explained, “So he could send troops.”

“What?” Kaiser frowned.

Seeing Gle was looking at him unhappily, Kaiser immediately gave him a flattering smile, then said,

“Aiya, not everyone is as smart as you, grandpa. Even though Kaiser inherited a tiny bit of your intelligence, I am not even remotely close to your intelligence, so I have a bit of trouble understanding.”

The flattery seemed to work quite well, and Gle revealed an arrogant smile,

“That Dragon Emperor guy wasn’t satisfied with having the Dragon Continent, so he wanted to control the entire world. In order to convince the entire race of Dragons to attack, he had to find a righteous excuse.”

“A crusade against the devil… AHH! So Miluo must be the new devil!”

Kaiser wasn’t an idiot after all. As soon as he heard the Dragon Emperor’s wish to take over the world, everything made sense to him.

He continued, “A few hundred years ago that bastard, the Dragon Emperor, framed me. It was obviously him who wanted to control the world, but he instead put all the blame on me.”

“The Dragon race would never support the Dragon Emperor in conquering the world, and his strongest forces were his Dragon Knights. Without Dragons, what were Dragon Knights going to do? Be Infantry? So being the strongest Magician, you became the devil. He then started a crusade against you and the country you were residing, Aklan Republic. After defeating you, Aklan would be almost gone, and he would use the opportunity to take over it as well.”

Kaiser hurriedly explained, and many thoughts all came out at once. So, in reality, Dragon Emperor’s plan was identical to the one before, at least, the plan to create a devil was the same as before. Last time it was Gle, and this time it’s Miluo!

“Hahaha! But that bastard never imagined for me to really become the devil!” Gle burst out in laughter,

“Since that bastard called me the devil, I showed him the kind of things the devil could do! I beat him back all the way to the Dragon Continent, and almost even pushed him off his own throne.”

“Then how did you end up losing?” Kaiser asked without thinking.

Gle’s face darkened, “Because the Dragon Emperor framed me again, spreading rumors that my true intentions were to destroy the world. F— destroying the world! Why would I possibly do such a thing? I haven’t played enough! My bastard Magicians decided to defect to their side, and surrounded me with the Dragon Emperor. Had it not been for Mizerui and Barbalis secretly helping me, and Maylee helping me with my escape… Hmmph!”

When he was getting to the end of the sentence, Gle’s expression looked rather strange. A person as proud as him still could not accept he had the help of others. Nevertheless, he had no choice back then; his whole body was practically falling apart, how could he have declined help?

Kaiser’s jaws dropped, and said with a stutter, “M-Mizerui and Barbalis helped you?”

Gle grunted, “Though few knew, but Mizerui is actually my apprentice. Barbalis and Qiusi were my classmates back in Aklan Academy… Hmph! Even Dragon Emperor’s wife Susanna was my classmate. The four of us were the infamous ‘Crazy Four’ back in the Academy. Susanna was just too stupid! Who cares if she helped her bastard husband, but she ended up getting killed. Stupid woman! Idiot!” Gle gritted his teeth while cursing, while holding the emerald tightly.

Bombs exploded one after another in Kaiser’s mind, and he was so in shock that looked like a deer in headlights.

He then asked, “Dragon Emperor killed his wife? How do you know? I heard she died from childbirth.”

“Nonsense! Susanna was strong as an ox. Even without magic, she could use her fists to beat me, Qiusi, AND Barbalis.”

Gle suddenly rubbed his chin with his hand with a lingering fear on his face, as if he had been struck before. He continued, “Her? Dying of childbirth? Hmmph! Even if she had any trouble, she would just grab her child out with her own bare hands.”

‘…Liola, perhaps you really were grabbed out by your mother with her bare hands.’ Kaiser felt sad for his companion, for a total of 0.3 seconds.

‘Would the Dragon Emperor be killed by his own son?’ Gle sported a slightly sinister smile.

Although he had never believed in fate and had a disdainful attitude towards fortune tellers, this prophecy was to his liking. He didn’t mind helping to push this prophecy along just like Mizerui and Barbalis.

Gle’s eyes were then fixed on Kaiser, and a smile surfaced on his mouth. He thought the runt’s magic wasn’t bad, and he could make a good assistant to killing the Dragon Emperor.

Seeing Gle’s smile, for some reason, Kaiser began to feel it would’ve been a good way to die if he had actually been burnt by the flames before. At least he would die quickly, and his body would even get a free cremation.

Chapter 2 : Kaiser’s Path, Liola’s Road

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

“Right, what’s with the people on the ground?” Gle impatiently kicked Lin Jiyun on the ground.

Though Kaiser told Gle about their story, it ended when they entered Purity’s black hole, and therefore, he didn’t know of Lin Jiyun, Void, and Yulie.

When Kaiser heard him, he told Gle what happened in the past year, especially Lin Jiyun’s story. He hoped Jiyun wouldn’t wake up to see the idiot-like Xin Jietian, and then run up and kill him with a sword. Although it wouldn’t matter to Kaiser if he killed Xin Jietian, he feared the action might anger Gle, and he might not even have a corpse for burial.

“Oh, I see.” Gle’s expression remained normal, and he didn’t seem to care at all.

Gle glanced at Kaiser, and his response did not answer the question, “To make a person suffer, killing him is the stupidest way. There is no pain when he dies. If he seeks revenge, then he should keep his enemies alive, then strip away his everything, make him wish he were dead!”

Kaiser shivered uncontrollably. The devil Gle did make sense. Had it not been for Gle’s personality, framing him to be the devil wouldn’t have been so easy.

Kaiser suddenly saw Lin Jiyun’s body shaking slightly, and his hand was strangely reaching into his pockets, as if he was trying to reach for something.

‘Could it be that Lin Jiyun was pretending to be asleep? And did he want to try to kill Xin Jietian when Gle wasn’t paying attention?’

Kaiser was in shock, if Gle finds out… No, Kaiser paused. Gle was someone whom even Liola couldn’t beat. If Kaiser could notice Lin Jiyun was pretending to be asleep, Gle must have already known for a while.

Kaiser could never forget Liola’s terrifying ability of being able to examine enemies hundreds of meters away. Gle’s alertness must be above Liola’s.

“Why…” Kaiser opened his mouth to ask, but he saw that Lin Jiyun was already getting up, so he shut his mouth.

Gle didn’t even look at Lin Jiyun, and instead said with disgust, “Nobody avenged your father’s death! This guy used Shalong Hall’s name and blamed me for the death of the Lin family. Hmmph, I abhor people framing me, so he’s practically asking for it!”

Lin Jiyun raised his head, and continued to thank him, “Senior, you helped Lin Jiyun seek vengeance. Lin Jiyun is beyond grateful. From now, no matter what senior tells Lin Jiyun to do, even if it would cost me my life, Jiyun would obey without question.”

Kaiser swore secretly! He didn’t realize this Lin Jiyun guy was even more of a suckup than himself. (He’s sincere, you’re the one who’s a suckup!)

Gle seemed very satisfied of what Lin Jiyun said. He originally didn’t even want to look at him, but now he seemed to be glancing at him. His mouth, however, still had a smile that would make Kaiser’s hair stand.

Gle said, “I was just thinking your vengeance was a bit too easy, and too boring. Since you said I can ask you to do anything… Okay! You will receive training from me alongside Kaiser. When you’re done with training, I will release the hypnosis on Xin Jietian. At that time, you must rely on yourself to fight against Xin Jietian. This fight will be on every level: intelligence, martial arts, and your connections with other people. Haha, the World of Martial Arts would be in turmoil then, and it will be fun.”

‘Devil! A devil indeed!’ Kaiser suddenly felt the Dragon Emperor didn’t even need to frame Gle. He may very well have, in time, found it boring and became the devil himself.

“Training…” Gle spun the emerald in his hand, and it reflected off his eyes, “Since this jewel is here, let’s do an experiment.”

‘Experiment?’ Kaiser stood stupefied, didn’t he wanted to train them?

If it was Liola standing here, hearing the word “experiment”, his face would’ve immediately turned pale. Gle’s experiments were always extremely bizarre, and the success rate was less than 10%. It wasn’t a training normal people could pass!

“Training!”

Lin Jiyun, who was kneeling on the ground, seemed to have flashing eyes when he heard “training.” He was originally worried his low strength couldn’t be a match against Xin Jietian, but Gle was now here to help him train, and he had also successfully trained the top Assassin. Lin Jiyun could almost picture the day when he becomes one of the strongest Martial Artists…

Even though Kaiser was lazy, he remembered he might once again end up in his original world, just like the White Dragon must’ve spent ages planning, and it wouldn’t possibly leave Liola in this world.

Thus, to Kaiser, learning more magic to protect his life would definitely be a good idea. He wouldn’t possibly dare to ignore the troublemaking ability of the Aklan Troublemaking Squad. It would already be a miracle if they don’t run into the Dragon Emperor plus Lancelot the moment they go back.

“Good. Luckily there’s a pile of idiots who could be your training targets.” Gle rubbed his chin like usually, and a thick smile formed on his face.

“Idiots?” Kaiser’s mind had trouble connecting the dots.

Gle raised his eyebrow, “Those idiots competing for a sword.”

“Uh… I don’t think that’s a good idea. If something goes wrong, we could be the enemies of the entire Martial Arts World. Even if you’re the Alliance Leader, we can’t just screw around like this, right?” Kaiser was hesitant, because he didn’t want to take refuge in a third world.

“Hmmph! There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Gle looked completely relaxed. “I’ve got plenty of Amnesia Honey. This stuff is enough to make someone completely forget about being the Alliance Leader. Worst case scenario, we’ll grab all these people, and pour it down their throats. Are you really afraid they won’t forget?”

… Such a horrible guy. An idea flashed across Kaiser’s mind, and he asked with hesitation, “Have you already done it before?”

Gle’s eyes slowly glanced at Kaiser. Whether he had done it… Kaiser knew the answer without hearing a word.

* * *

On the way, Yandi quietly followed Liola. Since she had spent some time with Liola before, she was familiar with his personality. Seeing his darkened eyes, Yandi knew deep inside, no matter what question she asked, it was impossible to get the answer. The Liola before her eyes was no different from the original Assassin, the one Yandi hated the most, the Assassin Silver Moon.

The first time she saw Silver Moon was during one of his mission. It was a summer day, hot enough to make people sweat bullets.

Having been around the Martial Arts World, Yandi had a nickname from people who hated her; Flaming Butterfly. The people who hated her the most were probably the Assassin organization; Shalong Hall. Though no one knew what their Leader looked like, everyone would instinctively think of the top Assassin when they think of Shalong Hall — Silver Moon.

At that time, her sworn sister, Anise, had been kidnapped by Shalong Hall. People of the Martial Arts World were all discussing how they were going to save her. The number of people saved by Anise at this point was countless. As soon as anyone mentions Shalong Hall, they all wanted to have their own “rescue plan”.

“Hmmph! What rescue plans? If she gets killed while you guys are coming up with a plan, then we wouldn’t need to save her!” Yandi said coldly after hearing the long debates between the crowd.

Many people loudly protested, saying things like a rushed attack would be suicide, and they would not be able to save the godly healer…

Yandi knew full well what these people were thinking. Having lived in the Martial Arts World since she was young, she knew them very well: these people did indeed want to rescue Anise. After all, they all knew Anise practically never rejected anyone who asked for her help, and injury was quite common among Martial Artists.

If they were injured, they wish a godly healer would come and help them. The problem was, however, it was Shalong Hall who abducted the godly healer, and it was the largest Assassin organization.

Out of these people, many of them had actually hired Shalong Hall before, or ones who may one day hire them.

The former was afraid their secrets may be revealed, and the latter was worried that when they do entrust Shalong Hall for something, they would be rejected or, in the worse scenario, Shalong Hall may hate them for doing so, then they would really have to worry about when their heads would fall off or when a sword would pierce through their chests.

Yandi wasn’t afraid of any of this. Her life was rescued by sister Anise, the worst case scenario was for her to give her life back in return.

Originally, if they weren’t going to take action today, Yandi planned to sneak into Shalong Hall by herself and rescue Anise. However, she remembered something and it caused her to completely give up on the idea.

It was such an inexistent existence. She couldn’t call him cold, because cold didn’t exist in his eyes. Or, perhaps more accurately, there was nothing in his eyes. Had she not known it was a person, Yandi would’ve thought the two darkened things were two pieces of iron instead of human eyes.

As Yandi stood still, and terror crept up on her face, the people around her gradually noticed something was wrong. They all looked in Yandi’s direction, and then suddenly realized, there was an unknown person there. One must understand, the place was filled with Martial Artists, and there was no shortage of famous masters among them, but no one managed to notice this person coming in.

Everyone was stunned, all because of the “void” in those silver eyes.

The silver-eyed man didn’t seem to take any actions. He was simply standing there quietly, but an action as simple as “standing there” placed fear in the hearts of the bystanders, and none of the masters would dare to make a move.

Yandi finally escaped from the void-like silver eyes, and carefully examined this person. If she were to look away from his eyes and manner, the person would look like a delicate man.

His black hair was as dark as the depth of the night, and it covered his shoulders. Along with the tight-fitting black clothes he was wearing, he was practically completely black. Nevertheless, it didn’t look strange, as if black had been his color ever since he was born, just like the night’s color.

Had there been any radiance in his eyes, he would’ve looked like a full moon on a dark night…

As soon as Yandi finished, even she, herself froze. Everyone seemed to have received a sharp warning.

Everyone knew who this void-like silver-eyed man was, and no one would doubt for a second the man was Shalong Hall’s top Assassin — Silver Moon.

But, strangely, Silver Moon didn’t move at all, and nobody dared to make a move, fearing they would become the first victim of Silver Moon’s onslaught.

Yandi had a strange feeling Silver Moon wasn’t here to kill. Because if he were, then everyone present would have been long dead, and even herself would’ve died before noticing anything was wrong.

Yandi’s instincts were correct. After the deadlock between Silver Moon and the crowd for two hours, Silver Moon disappeared without a trace. Yandi didn’t even see his figure clearly, and he seemed to disappear into thin air.

From then on, whenever the Martial Arts World held a meeting about attacking Shalong Hall, they would undoubtedly find Silver Moon standing quietly in the corner.

One time, some people even tried to attack Silver Moon. The result was, anyone who touched their weapons would have a blood-oozing wound on their throats, and from then on they no longer had to worry themselves with the problem of saving the godly healer.

Yandi, who actively participated in planning the godly healer’s rescue, became the person who saw Silver Moon the most. Perhaps it was because she was also looking at her surroundings, she was often the first person to discover Silver Moon. Many of these meetings had been interrupted by Silver Moon, and Yandi naturally hated him more and more.

But what she hated most was herself, for being afraid to go save her sister all on her own after seeing Silver Moon.

Finally, Anise was freed, but what followed her, was the terrifying Assassin.

“This is Liola, he’s the top Assassin. This is Long Yandi, my best sworn sister.”

Anise acted as if she had no clue how dangerous the man next to her was, but instead introduced Silver Moon with a smile. Yandi had no choice but to nod stiffly.

Anise happily poured tea, and asked the two to sit down, then began her endless “chit chat”. Even though Anise was the only one who talked the whole time, Silver Moon looked as if he was listening carefully, while Yandi was on guard while looking at Silver Moon, fearing he may suddenly attack.

The void-like eyes looked like they had something within them now. Yandi examined Silver Moon with surprise. His steel-like eyes looked as if there were ripples throughout.

Silver Moon seemed to have noticed Yandi examining him, and his silver eyes turned towards her. A shiver climbed up Yandi’s spine. When those silver eyes looked away from Anise, they turned into those voids again.

Silver Moon was, after all, the terrifying top Assassin, so Yandi’s hand never once left the whip on her waist.

* * *

Yandi woke up from her flashbacks. She saw Silver Moon had already gone far away, so she hurried to catch up.

When she reached Silver Moon, Yandi turned her head to examine Silver Moon’s face from the side. Ever since she met Silver Moon again, she had been surprised, Silver Moon’s silver eyes seemed to react to other people too, rather than just Anise.

But now… Yandi was suspicious. What could have happened to make Silver Moon act this way? His eyes were beyond freezing, but it still wasn’t like the first time they met, the terror of the void in his eyes.

‘Did sister do something to cause him to go crazy?’ Yandi’s heart was heavy.

She knew, even if Anise was the devil, Silver Moon probably wouldn’t be mad at her, and he may even become her right-hand man. Because of this, Yandi could not even imagine what could possibly make Silver Moon look this infuriated.

Since he was in a hurry to find Anise, then it must have something to do with Anise, right?

“What exactly happened?” Yandi was murmuring to herself. She had no plans of getting an answer from Silver Moon.

Who knew, not only did Silver Moon hear her, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at her.

Yandi was shocked, and she thought Silver Moon might have been unhappy with her asking questions and planned to kill her on the spot. Despite her keeping her hands on her whip for a long time, Silver Moon did not do anything.

Suddenly, Silver Moon turned and walked again, but his footsteps were slower. He began to slowly and quietly speak. Had it not been the fact that there was absolutely no one near them, Yandi would actually question whether it was Silver Moon telling the stories.

She listened carefully and quietly. Silver Moon talked about seeing Anise for the first time, then the time when he was pursued by everyone in Martial Arts World, and finally falling into an alien world.

When the story continued until the point where they came back to this world, then run into the Leader. When she found out the Leader was Gle, Yandi’s face seemed to sink.

Finally, Liola told her everything that has happened thus far. He spent almost a full day telling the story. It was Kaiser’s version, not the simple version Liola told.

Liola finished telling her what has happened recently in a mono-tone. But when he got to the point where Gle told him Anise was purely an illusion created by the White Dragon, there was a slight tremble in Liola’s voice.

After finishing the story, Liola didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to say anything, and just wanted to listen: listen to what a person more familiar with Anise than him would say? Would she say Anise was an illusion? Or would she loudly refute, thinking Anise was real?

Liola couldn’t hold back his anticipation, hoping it would be the latter. If Yandi spoke with the firmest attitude Anise absolutely was real, then Liola would continue to believe Anise indeed was the talkative and kind Anise.

“I met sister Anise when I was eight.” Yandi neither confirmed nor denied, but instead began to tell her own story.

“At the time, she already looked like she was twenty something. I had always thought she had received the gift of beauty. Even a dozen, almost twenty, years later, her appearance still didn’t change much.”

‘As expected!’ Liola held his fist tight, so tight that his short nails had dug into his flesh, leaving behind a deep imprint.

Yandi seemed to have noticed Liola acting strange. She said impatiently, “I listened until you finished, now it’s your turn to let me finish, Silver Moon.”

Hearing this, Liola tried as hard as he could to control his emotion. He slowly released his fist.

Yandi continued to talk about her youth, and the time she spent with Anise.

“At the time, I was sick with a strange disease. My master had looked for every doctor, but none could cure me. Everyone in the Wave Faction practically gave up on me, they even stopped teaching me martial arts, and let me do whatever I wanted, while I wait for day to die peacefully.”

“But I still wanted to learn martial arts, so I always sat quietly next to my sisters when they were training. Until one day when I woke up and felt strange. My chest felt completely empty, but I also felt well. It was then when I understood it was my time to die. I didn’t go see my sisters train, and I thought that, because my master had always treated me well, I shouldn’t bring her any trouble when I die.”

“I walked alone to the top of a mountain, thinking I could end it all by jumping off. My foot was already on the edge of the cliff.” After having said this much, Yandi began to smile.

“Stop! I told you to stop, can’t you understand?!”

When Yandi’s little foot was lifted half way, her body flutter around like a broken kite in the wind, and someone yelled for her to stop, with a rather strange way of yelling too. Yandi turned around to look to see who stopped her.

In the time she did so, a thin figure immediately charged at her, and grabbed her away from the cliff. The figure also held her tightly, to the point where it began to hurt.

Nevertheless, Yandi didn’t feel the slightest bit of pain, but instead felt the warmth of the person’s body beginning to warm her frozen body and soul. Tears dripped out of her eyes.

The person carried her and walked for a long time before letting her down, and wiped her tears while comforting her. It was then when Yandi had finally seen the person in front of her. She was a rather unique woman. Nobody who had ever seen her could ever forget her long, cream hair.

“You’re still so young, why must you end your life?”

“Because I am about to die.” Yandi finally felt the terror of death. She didn’t want to die, but she had no choice. To escape the pain of waiting for death by the second, she would rather choose to die first.

The woman with the long, cream hair carefully examined her, then smiled lightly, “My name is Anise, and you have to remember, no one can possibly die before Anise.”

It was a declaration worthy of being considered arrogant to the point of madness. Yandi willingly followed Anise, and she really did not die.

“And you! Before meeting sister, you weren’t even a person. You did not have a heart, or a life. If Anise was an illusion, do you think something lifeless could bring life to others?”

Liola was stunned. He turned to look at Yandi, and a slight sign of weakness leaked through his face.

This weakness softened Yandi slightly. She sighed, “The time you’ve had your heart is too short. Your heart is always weak, and it can’t endure the slightest of ordeals.”

She said earnestly, “But, think back! Silver Moon. Think back to the time you spent with sister; think back to her every emotion, every sentence, and every action. Were those things an illusion could have done?”

After hearing Yandi, the talkative, gossipy, and sympathetic long-haired woman returned to Liola’s mind. Silver Moon’s “void” gradually faded, and what replaced it was Liola’s expressionless face Kaiser had often called “ice cubes”.

Liola said somewhat panickedly, trying to find the answer, “B-but what Gle said, about the White Dragon…”

“I don’t know.” Yandi said directly, but then added, “We will find the answers eventually. When we find Anise, the truth will be clear. I believe the Anise, who gave us both life, indeed exists.”

‘Come find me, come find me.’

Liola suddenly saw the Dragon Cross Necklace around Yandi’s neck flashing a white light, as if it was anxious. He couldn’t refrain himself from putting his hand on the necklace. The light had always been warm, but depending on his feelings, what he sensed was often different.

“Do I really need to remind you that your hand is on my chest?” Yandi reminded somewhat rigidly, “I’m a woman, you are a man. I trust even an ice cube like you should know a man shouldn’t touch a woman’s chest?”

Chapter 3 : Daylight’s Path

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

Daylight followed his new master; Wanyuan, closely. At first nothing seemed strange to him. In order to coordinate with his master’s slow walking speed, Daylight slowed his pace. Who knew by doing so, Daylight was actually falling behind. He was shocked, and seeing master’s figure getting further and further away.

Daylight had a question in mind, and he wanted an answer immediately. He quickly hastened his steps to follow Wanyuan. When he reached a few steps away from Wanyuan, he did not slow down. In fact, he was practically jogging. But strangely, Daylight and Wanyuan were always a few steps apart.

Unconsciously, Daylight’s steps went faster and faster, because he wanted to get ahead of his master. He increased his speed until he was sprinting, but the stumbling old man was always a few steps in front of him.

Daylight wasn’t someone to admit defeat or give up halfway. He ran quickly as he closely observed the posture of Wanyuan walking: his unhurried steps was actually moving blazing speed.

Daylight thought about it briefly, and slowed down his pace. What was strange was that the distance of them did not change, it neither increased nor decreased: it was still a few steps part.

“That’s amazing. Could master have eyes on his back? How else would he know how fast I was running?” Daylight exclaimed aloud.

The buff man walking next to them opened his mouth and said, “Junior brother apprentice, not only does master have eyes on his back, he has eyes everywhere on his body.”

“What!” Daylight held his eyes and jaws open while looking at his brother apprentice.

Wanyuan suddenly burst out laughing, then said, “Little Grass, stop bullying your junior brother apprentice. If I had eyes all over my body, wouldn’t I be a demon?”

The brawny man who was called Little Grass said with dissatisfaction, “Master wished for me to be like grass, saying something about having vigorous vitality. My body must be as soft as a grass: come with the wind, and go with the wind so no matter how strong the wind may be, it would not break. Honestly, I don’t get it, isn’t fighting about who’s stronger?”

Daylight had no time to answer him. ‘Come with the wind, and go with the wind.’

A few ideas dawned on Daylight. He wanted to grab ahold of them, but those ideas jumped around his mind like naughty children, which made Daylight angry, but he wasn’t willing to give up.

‘Fighting is a match of who’s stronger?’ Daylight yelled, “NO!”

He remembered Liola’s thin body. If they were actually comparing muscle strength, Liola might not even be his match, but truthfully, Liola was so much more powerful than him. Unknowingly, Daylight remembered many scenes where Liola fought.

From what he remembered, it was rare for Liola to clash his weapon with his opponents’ to test his muscle strength. Instead, he was always… always… Daylight couldn’t find the words to describe Liola’s actions.

At this time, Wanyuan’s voice could be heard, “You are a tree, and you resist the wind forcefully. When you can’t, you fall.”

“Silver Moon is a grass, he comes and goes with the wind.”

[T/N: No indication whatsoever how Wanyuan suddenly knows how Silver Moon and Liola is the same person. At least this seem to suggest he knew.]

Daylight suddenly realized. ‘Right! Liola was always reacting to his opponents’ movements. His weapon rarely clash with his enemies’. When his enemy stabs, Broken Silver would slide along the hilt of the enemies toward their bodies. Even though it looked like his opponent was attacking and Liola was backing up, but in fact, it was his opponent throwing themselves at Liola’s blade.’

Daylight took out his pike and, while remembering Liola’s movements, thought about the possible reaction he should have made…

Wanyuan threw another line to his apprentice, “Circle your pike, and your attack will succeed.”

Daylight was surprised.

‘Circle the pike?’ It was something Daylight never thought about. Stabbing his pike was always the method of attack.

‘Going around?’ But Daylight did not doubt anything Wanyuan said. Since he chose to believe Wanyuan, Daylight continued to stubbornly believe him. Despite being unaccustomed to it, he waved his pike in a circular fashion.

* * *

Little Grass saw Daylight was obsessed with training, he was at a loss and he asked the master, “Are we not going to cover more distance today?”

“In a bit, don’t interrupt your brother apprentice’s thoughts.”

“Oh, okay.” Little Grass replied and scratched his head.

Wanyuan glanced at Little Grass, and when he didn’t see any dissatisfaction, he relaxed.

Despite the innate talents of this apprentice being low, he was simple-minded, and despite liking to cause trouble, he didn’t actually cause any harm.

Wanyuan thought, perhaps it was better he was unlike Wanyuan’s other apprentice, even though he was the esteemed Martial Arts Alliance Leader. But how many of those Alliance Leaders actually end up well throughout history?

Little Grass seemed a bit bored, then asked, “Master, you always say we should be like grass, and Silver Moon already acts like grass, so is he stronger than you?”

Wanyuan raised his eyebrows and said, “Silver Moon’s innate talents are so incredible and I’ve never seen another like him. Along with his master’s training, his power are truly amazing for someone his age. Nevertheless, there’s always someone better. From what I know, there are already quite a few hidden people in the Martial Arts World who could beat him.”

“Master, you lied, saying something about grass can’t fall, but isn’t he falling?” Little Grass seemed even more unhappy with his name.

Wanyuan mercilessly smacked his apprentice on the back of the head, and scolded a bit, “I said be like grass, it doesn’t mean grass is the highest level.”

Wanyuan reached out his hand and drew an “8” in the air. In Little Grass’s eyes, the arm moved very slowly.

He reached out his hand with a little disdain, trying to grab his master’s hand, but time after time he grabbed nothing but air. Little Grass was very surprised: master’s hand was obviously moving very slow, and it was always following the same path, so why couldn’t he grab it?

Wanyuan returned his hands on his back, and said, “The higher level… is to turn yourself into wind.”

Little Grass was at even more of a loss. Being grass wasn’t enough, so he had to turn himself into wind?

He murmured, “Grass is visible at least. Wind can’t even be seen. Other than master, can anyone even become the wind?”

“Ignorant!” Wanyuan scolded his apprentice.

Little Grass didn’t back down, he asked back, “Then, master, who have you seen turn into wind.”

Wanyuan shook his head, “There are quite many who could. But at their level, most don’t even care for fame, power, and money anymore. Most of them live hidden away from this world, so of course you wouldn’t know about them.”

“But, there is one person you should know.”
“Who?” Little Grass asked foolishly.
“Shalong Hall’s leader.”

Wanyuan nodded, and said with a projecting voice, “He is an incredible man. He appeared out of nowhere, and there was immense power on his body. A few dozen years ago, when he had just formed Shalong Hall, I once had a conflict with him.”

“Master, you’ve fought with him?” Little Grass was in disbelief, then hurriedly asked, “Master, did you win or lose?”

Wanyuan answered simply, “Both won and lost.”

“How can you both win and lose? Master, you’re not making any sense.” Little Grass scratched his head in confusion.

“Won, because the result of the fight was indeed my win.” Wanyuan looked deep in thought, “Lost, because he seemed to have a strange and incredible power other than his Kung Fu, but he did not use it, even after he lost. When I asked him why, he said the power did not belong in this world, and it wouldn’t be fair.”

Wanyuan shook his head, “A man both crazy and presumptuous. Even when I said I’ll kill him, he didn’t want to use the mysterious power to save himself.”

Having said this, he began to remember that wildly arrogant figure and laughter. What kind of person was he…

“I said no, so I won’t use it. I lost, and I deserve to die!”

“Then did you really kill him, master?” Little Grass acted as if he was listening to a story. When he was intrigued, the storyteller suddenly closed his mouth. It was uncomfortable for Little Grass to end on a cliffhanger.

Wanyuan snapped, “If I killed him, then is their current Leader a ghost?”

Little Grass thought for a moment, and nodded. He then started to laugh foolishly with embarrassment.

“I let him go, he told me he would never thank anyone, but he will one day repay me.” Wanyuan paradoxically shook his head as he smiled, then murmured,

“Looks like someone avenged my apprentice, and saved this old man from having to work hard for revenge.”

Little Grass still wanted to ask what he meant, but Wanyuan frowned and waved his hand to stop Little Grass. He turned around and looked at the horizon far away, as if he was waiting for something.

Little Grass saw master’s actions, and also stared blankly at the sky. Since he believed his master, he didn’t doubt for a second there would be things appearing out of the sky other than birds.

In the sky, a small dot appeared, and it gradually grew while getting closer and closer. It was obvious by now, it was definitely not a bird. When the thing was close enough to see clearly, they saw an elegant and beautiful beast: the king of the skies, a Snow-White Dragon.

“Aiya, master, a demon!” Little Grass opened his mouth. He had never seen such a terrifying creature. Such a giant, sturdy look struck terror into the hearts of anyone who saw it.

Wanyuan frowned slightly. He turned and looked at the small Flames, then looked back at the Snow-White giant creature. Even though the size and color were different, but he could tell the shapes were fairly similar. Could this giant beast be here for his new apprentice?

* * *

At this time, Flames also ran towards its master, and pulled Daylight, who was practicing his moves.

Daylight suddenly snapped from his Martial Arts craze. At this time, the giant creature also flapped its giant wings while it landed, causing quite a wave of strong winds.

“Baolilong?” Daylight was in shock, then looked towards Baolilong’s back. Instead of a familiar figure, however, Daylight saw a graceful young woman.

The girl fell off the Dragon’s back the moment Baolilong landed. She spent a long time on the ground, and could not seem to stand up.

Daylight rushed over, and patted the girls back as he asked caringly, “Yulie, are you okay?”

The girl’s face was pale, and she kept shaking her head. Two streams of tears were running down her face. Her first flight experience had scared her out of her mind.

Daylight also knew, Baolilong’s terrifying flight was not something an ordinary person could endure, so he had to suppress his questions and wait until Long Yulie recovered a little.

Little Grass saw Daylight’s intimate actions towards her, and began to laugh suggestively, it was a laugh only men could understand, “Brother apprentice, I didn’t think you would have such a pretty paramour.”

Little Grass’s words caused Long Yulie, despite being out of it, to blush.

Daylight seem shocked, then asked, “What does ‘paramour’ mean?”

Little Grass didn’t know his brother apprentice was so clueless about interpersonal relationships, and he didn’t even know what “paramour” meant. He would even ask what it was in front of a girl.

Little Grass answered with a stutter, “‘Paramour’ means… aiya, i-it just means a girl whose relationship with you is out of the ordinary.”

Hearing Little Grass’s obscure explanation. Daylight scratched his head. Since he didn’t understand the relationships in this world, he naturally thought friends were a relationship out of the ordinary, so he answered after a brief moment of thought,

“Yeah, our relationship is out of the ordinary.”

Little Grass widened his eyes, and Yulie’s face turned crimson. She thought, maybe she should open her mouth to clarify, but she also subconsciously did not want to clear anything up. So she decided to lower her head and not say anything.

At this time, Wanyuan coughed a few times, and pulled everyone’s attention back. He asked,

“Little girl, why are you here looking for my apprentice? Did something happen to his companions?”

Daylight finally remembered what was important, and he turned to ask hurriedly, “Yulie, tell us quickly!”

Yulie was at a loss at what to say. She froze with her mouth open. At this time, however, the giant white Dragon next to her disappeared in waves of intense white light. What replaced it was actually a small child, and this situation put Wanyuan and Liittle Grass at a loss.

But Daylight wasn’t surprised by it. When Baolilong ran straight to Daylight with tears in its large eyes.

Daylight was shocked, and asked hurriedly, “Baolilong, what happened to everyone?”

Baolilong suddenly bawled, while yelled vaguely, “Papa ran into the devil, and the devil beat up papa, then said a lot of things. Then papa turned really really scary. Papa ran off, without taking Baolilong.”

“Devil?” Daylight had gotten dizzy from hearing the cries. ‘How did a devil suddenly appear? And who was this devil?’

“It’s the Leader; Shalong Hall’s Leader!” Yulie could finally speak now, and her voice was filled with trembling and terror, “Y-your second brother apprentice is actually the top Assassin Silver Moon.”

Yulie suddenly remembered the Leader’s task for her. The intense fear she felt forced her to begin repeat the Leader’s message, and she wouldn’t dare to even miss a single word.

“Wanyuan’s apprentice, I know you don’t belong here, and you should know my name: I am Gle.”

“Gle!” Daylight’s body trembled. He would have never imagined he would hear such a forbidden name in this world.

“Listen to me well, I will give you three month’s time. After three months, you must fight with Silver Moon, whom I have taught single-handedly. If you win, I will return your two friends to you. If you lose, oh well, I will kill Liola, because he’s the Dragon Emperor’s son.”

“However, to be fair, I’ll give you one more advantage, considering I did teach Silver Moon for twenty years, whereas you only have three months. I will train Kaiser strictly, and when the time comes, you will fight together with Kaiser. If you still lose, at most SIlver Moon will beheaded, but at least it shouldn’t matter to you.”

“Hahaha, Wanyuan, you better mentor your new apprentice well. This duel will be our second match, hahaha.”

This speech from the arrogant Gle seemed to have lost some of its tone when repeated by Yulie, but the contents of which was clear enough.

Although Daylight didn’t know how this came to be, he was clear that three months from now, he must defeat Liola; otherwise… Liola will die?

“This guy is still as ridiculous as he was.” Wanyuan shook his head.

Little Grass scratched his head, and murmured in confusion, “What kind of duel is this, wanting his apprentice to fight with someone, and if his apprentice wins, then the apprentice would die?”

“Master.” Daylight took a few deep breaths.

Even though he knew Liola was strong and to beat him with only three months of training was simply ludicrous, Daylight was not going to give up. His face was covered with determination, and he bent down on one knee to his master,

“Master, please mentor me in the strictest way possible. No matter what, in three months, I must go and rescue my companions.”

“No matter which aspect you consider: innate talent, training length, or training method, you pale in comparison to Silver Moon in all aspects.. Even though you are the one in a million Martial Arts prodigy, your opponent is Silver Moon, who had been training for twenty years, plus his master is Gle, who would use all sorts of possibly fatal methods to train…”

Wanyuan looked up into the sky, and said to his apprentice honestly, “Even with the strictest method, in three months, it would still be impossible for you to defeat Silver Moon. Do you still wish to train?”

Daylight showed no signs of backing off, he yelled loudly, “Then use the method more strict than the strictest method!”

Wanyuan turned his face towards the sky and laughed, “Young one, ah, young one, okay! I will handle you with the most stringent method. Little Grass.”

“Yes, Master?” Little Grass answered obediently.

“Go buy a few of the best horses. We are heading to Divine Medicine Valley, and find that God of Medicine guy.”

Wanyuan laughed while stroking his beard, “I’m definitely going to make that old fossil take out his best medicine.”

Unknown to Wanyuan, Daylight was in even more of a hurry. He immediately told Flames to become bigger, and then yelled, “Master, there’s no time. It would be faster to ride my Dragon there.”

Wanyuan, Little Grass, and Yulie turned, only to see a giant Red Dragon. Hearing its feverish Dragon Roar, all three of their faces changed to three different shades.

Chapter 4 : One Goal, Three Journeys

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

“Magic is not something you can learn in a short time.” Gle said lazily, “Since you didn’t continue to meditate in these past few years, there’s nothing I could teach you, because it would be pointless. It would be better to let that Daylight guy go by himself, and you would be a burden to him even if you go.”

“I meditated every night. EVERY-NIGHT!” Kaiser emphasized, “And it’s the special meditation technique found in your house, so it allowed me to use advanced magic spells such as White Bomb and Levitation. But the former could only be used once every three days, and the latter, when used, gives me an intense migraine the next day. I also can’t seem to learn lower level or normal magic spells.”

Gle seemed more intrigued about something else, “How did you find my house? It’s in quite a secretive location, and if it weren’t, the bastard Dragon Emperor would’ve already robbed it. So it couldn’t possibly have survived until now.”

Kaiser grunted, and took out a pentacle necklace from within his collars, “This is the reason. I’ve told you before, I was tricked into being the sacrifice in the arena. That day, after being exiled, I noticed when a blood fell on this necklace, it emitted light. The thin light kept pointing in some direction. Since I had nowhere to go, I had no choice but to follow the light.”

“Who knew, it led me straight to your home.” Kaiser snapped, “It even made me cut myself. I bled almost a whole bag of blood before the damned door let me in.”

Gle raised his eyebrows, “It’s because your bloodline is rather thin. My eldest daughter is your grandmother, so only one eighth of your blood is mine. It’s already a miracle it only took a bag of blood to open the door.”

“Stop going off-topic.” Kaiser said with dissatisfaction, “Tell me quickly, what is wrong with your special meditation technique? When I first found your notes about magic, I was so happy, thinking one day, after I learn all of this, I could rescue my sister. But in the end, the result was horrific.”

“Haha, you are quite lucky.” Gle suddenly burst out laughing.

Kaiser suddenly had a foreboding feeling, “What do you mean?”

“I did not invent that meditation technique.” Gle’s face suddenly seemed a bit darkened, “When I was in Aklan Academy, I had some disagreements with the Magic instructor on the first class, so I never went to his class. I dug the method up from the library there.”

“I just grabbed it randomly, but I had no idea it was no ordinary explanation. To this day I have no idea who left it there, it was a certain Magician’s research, and supposedly it was ten times as effective as normal meditation.”

“Ten times?” Kaiser asked back in disbelief, “Really?”

“Yes!” Gle said lazily, “But only if you’re still alive after going through with it, otherwise, no matter how many times the effectiveness, it would be nothing.”

Kaiser seemed shocked, “What are you saying? I don’t understand?”

“Meditation costs a great deal of spiritual force. When you meditate once, it equals someone else doing it ten times. Then by meditating ten times per night, your spiritual force will be ten times more than others. What do you think will happen?”

Kaiser heard, and he felt numb in his spine. To leave the Dark Street, and to rescue his sister, he had at least seriously practiced Magic for a while. Of course he knew what could happen: if spiritual force increased too quickly, then the result would either be going crazy, or his head would explode.

Kaiser touched his own head, and it was still there! Couldn’t he be crazy? It can’t be, right?

Seeing Kaiser stupidly touching his head, Gle seemed to have found it amusing. He snickered for a while before he said,

“That’s why I said you’re lucky. Everyone in my family is natural prodigy for Magic, and their abilities to handle spiritual force have always been extraordinary. Nevertheless, as far as I know, the only person who could handle this meditation was me. Everyone else who had tried it, either almost died, or have gone almost crazy.”

“Of course, now, you’re also someone who could handle it.”

‘I really am quite lucky.’ Kaiser thought as he touched his head, but then he thought something was wrong.

Kaiser asked hurriedly, “Wait, if we’re trained the same way, why are you so strong and why am I so terrible?”

“Terrible?” Gle grunted, and said, “Other than Gle family members, White Bomb was something only senior Magicians could use. Do you know, senior Magicians are mostly old geezers in their seventies or eighties?”

“Can they only use it once every three days too?”

“Well, no.” Gle answered honestly, “If training to the age of seventy only gives you one Divine Fireball every three days, who the heck would want to be a Magician?”

“Divine Fireball?” Kaiser asked blankly.

Gle explained impatiently, “It’s what you call ‘White Bomb’. Shut up, and fire one so I can see.”

Kaiser didn’t dare to say no. He obediently raised his gun, and began an incantation.

Gle frowned a little, and the gun in Kaiser’s hands began to glow. As he completed the incantation, a Divine Fireball shot out of the gun into the sky. It quickly flew through the air, then disappeared without a trace.

Kaiser looked towards Gle, wondering what kind of comment he would make, but Gle was still raising his head and looked towards the direction in which the Divine Fireball flew. Kaiser saw Gle looked serious, so he didn’t dare to interrupt his thoughts. Kaiser had no choice but to sit down and wait quietly.

Half an hour passed before Gle lowered his head. His face was still expressionless, which made Kaiser feel a bit scared.

“You are indeed an idiot!” Gle swore the moment he opened his mouth.

“W-what did I do?” Kaiser didn’t know what he had done wrong.

Gle pointed at the sky, “Your Divine Fireball took an entire thirty minutes to explode. Do you know what it means?”

Kaiser shook his head. How would he know what it meant? He didn’t even know they exploded at all. For all the times he had used it before now, he had only seen it pass through things, and had no idea where they went.

Gle explained coldly, “A normal Divine Fireball should explode the moment it touches something, rather than exploding thirty minutes later. Because if you had to wait half an hour before exploding, it would no longer be a Divine Fireball, bit a highly compressed Divine Fireball instead.”

Kaiser asked with hesitation, “Highly compressed? Shouldn’t it be even more powerful?”

“So, I’m really strong?” Kaiser opened his mouth. So he’s actually more powerful than a senior Magician?”

“To an ordinary person, really strong, and really stupid.” Gle said with disdain.

“You used every last bit of your spiritual force to compress these thirty Divine Fireballs, and of course you wouldn’t be left with enough force to control such a Super Divine Fireball. As a result, it has to be shot in a straight line. If your enemy were to avoid such a linear Super Divine Fireball, you would be left without any spiritual force and become a sitting duck.”

“Control it?” An idea dawned on Kaiser, could it be… “Super Divine Fireballs could turn?”

“It will turn if you make it turn.” Gle glanced at Kaiser, “But of course, only if idiot like you has enough spiritual force to control it.”

Kaiser’s jaws dropped. ‘My god! A turning Fireball?’

“Right!” Gle suddenly remembered, “This must be why, your spiritual force grew too quickly, and I didn’t teach you, so you had no idea how to control your force, which result in your magic being extremely unstable.”

Other than Gle secretly praising him, everything else he said was a blur to Kaiser. But Kaiser thought it was fine, because what’s important was how they could resolve the problem.

He asked hurriedly, “So what should I do?”

Gle thought briefly, “Practice, and this.” He raised his right hand, and there was an emerald on his palm.

“With this?” Kaiser’s eyes widened; the jewel he found on Liola?

“This belongs to Maylee. She’s the best Alchemist I have ever known. Do you really think something she made would be an ordinary jewel?”

The perfect emerald reflected in Gle’s blue eyes, while a smile formed on his lips: a smile which previously made Liola’s expression change, and was now creeping out Kaiser.

“Catch.” Gle threw the emerald casually.

Although he feared for his life, Kaiser had no other choice. He fumbled to catch the emerald, then carefully carried it.

Kaiser knew nothing of Alchemy, but he knew full well it was never a leisure activity. In fact, every material used by Alchemists were extremely dangerous, and explosions were a common occurrence.

It was a blessing from their ancestors if the explosions didn’t spread corrosive material everywhere, and it was a blessing from other people’s ancestors if the explosions didn’t carry poison that would spread for miles. Rumors had it, prices for land and houses near Alchemists were all scarily low.

“Use your spiritual force and control a bit of magic element, then pour it into the jewel.” Gle said lazily.

Kaiser did as asked, and the emerald suddenly exploded with light. Kaiser, who had been surprised when he first saw it, covered his eyes and moaned in pain. It was a long while before he stopped and finally escaped from the status of being legally blind.

Kaiser suddenly realized his surroundings had changed significantly: from the rays of light shining in through the window, a few balls of light the size of fingernails were floating in the air. The wooden table and chairs were also emitting a faint yellow light. When he walked up to examine it, he realized there were small yellow balls of light on them.

Kaiser looked inside the teacup on the wooden table, and saw many blue balls of light floating in the tea.

Sunlight were white balls, wood were yellow balls, water was blue balls… Kaiser had an epiphany.

Gle did not give any explanation, and instead he said lazily, “I’m going to take a nap. Before I wake up, you have to use magic of different colors as paint, and put a picture together. If it looks ugly…”

Gle laughed coldly, “You will be responsible for whatever happens.”

Kaiser widened his eyes. ‘Use element to put together a picture?’

He yelled hurriedly, “Wai—…”

Before he even finished the simple syllable, Gle’s figure faded, and disappeared in front of Kaiser’s eyes. No one knew where he went to take a nap, and left Kaiser behind, who only had half a clue; he was so frustrated that he wanted to pull his hair out.

He didn’t know how long Gle would sleep either. Kaiser secretly prayed he would sleep for a really long time. At least, he knew he loved sleeping, so he believed, as his ancestor, Gle must also be a sleepaholic.

“Fine, d-drawing can’t possibly be hard for me.”

Kaiser murmured, digging through the magic knowledge he had taught himself: spiritual force could control the magic element present everywhere in the world. The stronger the spiritual force, the more magic element could be controlled and, of course, the magic spell used as a result would be stronger.

After having thought about it, even his ancestor said his spiritual force was enormous, then it shouldn’t be hard for him to put the magic elements in a picture, right?

Kaiser took a deep breath, and decided to start with the most stable element: earth. He recollected the way he used spiritual force during the casting of a spell, and gathered the element of earth.

Under the control of Kaiser’s spiritual force, the element of earth moved as expected: a large quantity of earth elements suddenly rushed into the room, and they broke the normal flow of elements into chaos. The collision of the elements in the air caused a series of fireworks in the air.

Kaiser had no idea it would end up like this. He quickly hid himself under the table, and covered his ears. After a while, the fireworks had finally finished, and Kaiser carefully climbed out from under the table.

His surroundings looked terrible: the walls were covered with fist-sized burn marks, the teacup and tea pot on the table had already broken into pieces, and even the table under which Kaiser hid just now, had suddenly broken two of its legs, then crumbled into wooden planks.

Kaiser had a feeling this would’ve happened. When he was practicing magic before, he had countless encounters like this. He had never been successful with the lower level magic, and it would usually end in destruction. Had it not been born with the element of fire, he might not have even be able to use fireball.

[T/N: In archaic beliefs (and often in martial arts novels), there were 5 elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; each creature was often believed to be aligned to one of these elements. So Kaiser was born with an attunement to fire.]

Suddenly someone spoke, and Kaiser was surprised. He turned around to find Void slowly getting off the ground while sweeping off the planks on him.

As soon as Kaiser saw Void, he snapped, “You surely are a deep sleeper. Even though the world was exploding around you, you were still asleep!”

Void seem shocked, and asked, “Exploding? What happened? How did I fall asleep, did I get drugged?”

“Something like that.” Kaiser answered casually. He didn’t want to give himself more trouble by explaining magic to people of this world.

“Then… where are everyone else?” Void knew Kaiser was in a bad mood, so he asked carefully.

Kaiser was still frustrated with his magic. But to him, he could think and talk at the same time. So while thinking about magic, his mouth never stopped; he explained everything thoroughly.

Luckily there weren’t much to talk about: he explained Liola was Silver Moon, and now got caught by the Leader, so he must beat Liola in three months with the help of Daylight, or otherwise Liola will die, so he was now frustrated with controlling his own power…

“I understand.” Void knitted his eyebrows. Though he wasn’t familiar with the quiet Liola, he didn’t have any bad impressions of him. When he heard Liola was an Assassin trying to repent, how could he not help?

“Tell me, what is up with your power?” Void wanted to help, “Taoism is also quite a mysterious power; perhaps there are something common with them.”

Kaiser hesitated briefly, then explained in detail, “My power is called magic. The world is filled with a power known as magic element, and although your world has far less of it compared to mine, it has enough for magic usage. To drive these magic elements, one must use spiritual force, which is…”

Void got more and more confused. It felt like Kaiser put a stick in his head and began to stir everything together, and he no longer understood anything.

Kaiser glanced at Void, and probably knew he didn’t understand. But it didn’t matter to Kaiser, since he didn’t really have any high hopes. It would be ridiculous to ask someone with a sword to help him with magic.

Kaiser continued his thoughts. If he couldn’t paint a magic picture before Gle woke up, perhaps he wouldn’t have to worry about whether Liola dies in three months, instead, he’d be in hell waiting for Liola.

“Master said, no matter how you put it, every power is a path leading to the same thing…” Void said hesitantly, “Judging by what you said, spiritual force sounds like Ki, magic elements… are sort of like your arms and legs. We use Ki to bring agility and strength to our arms and legs, much like you use spiritual force to use magic element.”

This did seem familiar. Kaiser stared blankly for a moment, then began to listen intently to what Void was saying.

Void took a moment to collect his thoughts, then continued, “So what you’re saying is, your spiritual force is very powerful, but you can’t use it to its fullest extent. It’s like if we were to give a child powerful Ki, but he doesn’t know how to use it. Instead, he might overexert his Ki, and break his own arms and legs and become crippled as a result.”

“Then how do you resolve it?” Kaiser asked hurriedly.

Void scratched his face, “Teach him slowly on how to use Ki. At first, let him exert a small bit of Ki, and get used to the feeling of Ki filling his limbs, then increase it slowly…”

“A small bit… use magic element to paint….” Kaiser jumped up as if hit by lightning and yelled loudly, “I understand now!”

Void seemed to be shocked, and asked stupefied, “Understand what?”

Kaiser touched his head with embarrassment, “I had thought more spiritual force was always better, so I use all my power to use magic every time. But because the strength of my spiritual force, I always end up with a big explosion or turn fireballs into super Divine Fireball.”

“But now I understand. My problem is the amount of spiritual force I use. It’s the reason why Gle wants me to use magic element to paint, because he wanted me to control a minute amount of element to draw, so I can learn to control my spirit force.”

Kaiser’s mouth was wide open, he hadn’t thought the devil would have such bizarre ideas. Had Void not been here and coincidentally reminded him, he would’ve thought the devil was trying to make things difficult for him.

As soon as he thought of a way, Kaiser immediately began to act on it. He attempted to use a miniscule amount of spiritual force to control a bit of water element. Slowly but surely, the water element began to move bit by bit. At the same time, it didn’t seem to affect any other element.

Kaiser was so excited that his heart was beating out of his chest. He put down the water element, and reached out his devilish claw at earth element… no, reaching out his spiritual force. As expected, earth element slowly moved to water element’s side, and stayed there obediently.

“Great! I did it!” Kaiser cheered loudly.

“Oh? Congratulations.” Void smiled blankly. He could neither see nor sense the elements, so he had no idea what Kaiser meant. But since Kaiser did say so, Void assumed he was successful.

Kaiser sighed, “Luckily I have the jewel from Auntie; this jewel actually allows me to ‘see’ the element, this is just too mystical! If I couldn’t see it with my eyes, I wouldn’t be done so quickly.”

“What should I paint?” Kaiser thought. A light flashed across his mind, ‘This one!’

Kaiser began to paint carefully. He had no idea, Gle already appeared while yawning, and he glanced at Void coldly.

Kaiser put on the last bit of fire element and clapped, “Finished!”

Gle poked his head over, and surprised Kaiser. He examined it with narrowed eyes, “This Guernica by Picasso is not bad, it does look like it.”

“Picasso?” Kaiser scratched his head. He had no idea it was drawn by Picasso, because he knew nothing of paintings. It was just something he had seen on Meinan’s clothings.

He asked skeptically, “Isn’t this painting called the Last Supper?”

‘L-last supper?’ Gle slipped a bit, and with his lips twitching, he examined the painting. He saw twisted bodies, warped faces, and some of them don’t even look like humans. No matter how he looked, it looked more like the Spanish Civil War. If this were the last supper… then there was only one possibility: this little runt’s painting skill was worse than a three year-old!

“Last Supper?” Gle asked with narrowed eyes.

Kaiser immediately felt something wrong in the air, and the devil’s ambience was already spreading in the air.

He answered solemnly, “I’m just kidding! What is the Last Supper anyway?! You know, I’m a big fan of Pikoso, especially the Spanking Civilian Work. For his work, I could even give up the Last Supper… assuming there will be midnight snacks.”

[T/N: Intentional misspellings]

Gle examined Kaiser with skeptical eyes, whom looked back firmly at him, without the slightest hint of a blush for his lies.

“Training? No problem, you can be as harsh as you want!” Kaiser thumped his chest and promised.

Gle laughed slightly, “Don’t worry, it won’t be harsher than Li’s; that method was a bit high with the mortality rate. I still look forward to your fight with Li, so I don’t want you to die first.”

Kaiser’s hand on his chest suddenly stopped, “H-how high is ‘a bit’?”

Gle tapped his face with his finger, trying to remember, “I think I caught about six to seven hundred children. After training for a few months, those without innate talents were thrown out, same with those who were crippled during training accidents, and of course those who died. After twenty years, only Li remains.”

‘699 out of the 700 were thrown away, so the mortality rate was 99.8%. T-this was just “a bit” high?’ Kaiser’s arms and legs began to shake. Would he… also get thrown out… after three months?

* * *

“Master, which way do we go next?”

Daylight yelled back anxiously at his master. Wanyuan was one who had seen just about everything and faced every dangerous enemy. Despite never sitting on such a fast-flying Dragon, he didn’t seem any different other than his face being slightly pale.

Yulie, however, had already given up any etiquette of a lady, and desperately held onto Daylight’s leg. Little Grass also gave up the dignity of being an elder brother apprentice, and held onto his master with both his hands and feet.

Little Baolilong was sitting blankly on Flame’s head. As much as it loved flying, without Liola on its back, to Baolilong, flying had lost its appeal.

“We’re almost there! The mountain range in front of us is our destination.”

Wanyuan said loudly, his trembling voice seemed to be intertwined with surprise, “Good apprentice, fly over slowly. The surrounding is beautiful. Cultivation of the mind is just as important to anyone who studies Martial Arts, and we don’t have to rush like this…”

Daylight looked ahead, and surely enough, there was a mountain range entrenched in clouds. Without saying anything, he commanded Flames to do a diving rush.

As for what Wanyuan said about cultivation of the mind, he ignored completely. Even Yulie or Little Grass’s screams could not interrupt Daylight’s determination to get to Divine Medicine Valley as soon as possible, to find a way to increase his strength, how could Wanyuan’s calm voice stop Daylight?

When Flames’ giant figure appeared above the Divine Medicine Valley, it caused quite a rumble underneath.

A dozen or so men and women with straw baskets beneath screamed as they ran every which way, obviously being terrified of what was happening.

The houses made out of bamboo in the Valley also began to shake, as if they could fall at any moment. The people within the houses also ran out, and glared at Flames with widened eyes.

As soon as Daylight saw the people in the Valley, he thought they must be the people of Divine Medicine Valley his master had talked about. He immediately commanded Flames to land in an open area. After receiving the command, it went down directly into the Valley.

Since the people underneath had already ran away, it wasn’t afraid of stepping on any humans. As for their belongings, such as places to hang their clothes, they were as meaningless as grass to Flames, so it stepped right on them.

As soon as they landed, Daylight yelled excitedly, “Master, we’re here, let’s begin with the training!”

Wanyuan’s head was covered in layers of sweat, but at least nothing like Little Grass or Yulie. They practically fell off the back and began to show their appreciation by kissing the ground.

Nevertheless, Wanyuan did prefer to have his feet on the ground. He jumped off Flames’ back with elegance, and as soon as he did a rude comment came behind him.

“Old Rock, what’s your problem?! Bringing such a large monster to my Divine Medicine Valley to cause troubles. Are you trying to bully me because I don’t have many people here?”

Wanyuan turned to find a middle-aged man with a ruddy face and a wide hip. He looked exactly like a farmer with his crude clothings.

There was a gathering sickle on his waist, and he had a large bamboo basket on his back: so large, it was the twice the size of anyone else’s. There were a dozen or so young men and women behind him, and they were all looking at Flames with apprehension.

“God of Medicine! Old friend! How could I dare to bully you? Even if no one is here, all your strange medicine here would drive me crazy.”

Wanyuan laughed loudly. He knew very well had he not been God of Medicine’s good friend for many years, there probably be a few hundred types of drugs being thrown at them.

Although the people of Divine Medicine Valley were passionate about medicines instead of Kung Fu, with the help of medicine, their Kung Fu was actually not any worse than any other factions in the Martial Arts world, not to mention they all carry dozens of drugs for defense. There weren’t many people in the Martial Arts World who would want to trifle with them.

God of Medicine walked in a full circle around Flames, and examined it carefully, then praised it,

“Such a beautiful big thing. It’s so majestic and mighty, calling it a demon was actually belittling it.”

He turned and looked at the only person who looked still composed — Daylight. He asked, “Little guy, is this big guy yours?”

Daylight nodded, “Yes, it’s my Dragon. It’s name is Flames.”

“Dragon, hmm?” God of Medicine habitually patted his bamboo basket, and looked like he was deep in thought, but he didn’t seem to refute Daylight.

God of Medicine asked Wanyuan with an objectionable tone, “Old Rock, there’s definitely a reason why you’re here. Every time you’ve been here at the Divine Medicine Valley, it has always been because of something troublesome. Spill it! Why are you here this time? Don’t tell me you came here just to let me see what a Dragon looks like?”

Wanyuan cut straight to the chase, he pointed at Daylight and said straightly, “In three months, make his power comparable to Silver Moon’s.”

“Impossible! Silver Moon is a prodigy in Martial Arts unlike any I’ve seen, and he has received special training. He’s always living between life and death. Having that kind of power at his age, let alone seeing it, there hasn’t anyone in the history of Martial Arts who would even come close.”

Daylight felt deeply depressed upon hearing, not because he wasn’t comparable to Liola, but instead worried that, in three months, if Liola dies because of his failure, Daylight would never forgive himself.

Nevertheless, Daylight was not the type to stay depressed. Even if everyone told him he did not even have the slightest hope, he would still do it without ever turning back.

Wanyuan glanced at his apprentice, and saw his frustration and despair dissipated in the blink of an eye, what replaced those negative emotions was surprisingly an even a more intense look of determination.

Wanyuan was quite amazed, even if Daylight’s innate talent didn’t match Silver Moon’s, his will was unmatched. Perhaps some day, he could be a match to Silver Moon? But due to the lack of time… Wanyuan sighed, for his apprentice, he planned to put in everything he had.

“Didn’t I find a Millennia Ginseng and asked you to help me process it?”

God of Medicine frowned, “Millennia ginseng is mainly used to increase your longevity and return you to your youth. It’s also the best medicine to treat wounds. Even if a person is hamstrung or have internal organ damages, it could be used to revive them. As for its effect on power, it has some, but it’s nowhere near Millenia Snake Pill.”

Wanyuan said freely, “Okay! Then the Millennia Ginseng is yours. Do whatever you can to help my apprentice.”

God of Medicine looked deeply surprised, “Old Rock, didn’t you spend over a hundred years to find Millenia Ginseng? You gave it to me a decade ago, and now it’s almost done being processed, you are really willing to give it up?”

When Daylight heard Wanyuan had spent so much effect on the ginseng, and was willing to give it up for a new apprentice; he felt tears in his eyes, and gratefulness in his heart.

Daylight interrupted, “Master, Daylight will train hard, no matter how harsh the training is. Please don’t abandon your years of effort because of Daylight.”

Hearing his apprentice say this, Wanyuan felt warm in his heart, but on the surface he solemnly denounced, “Your master is talking, apprentices have no right to interrupt. Go stand on the side!”

“But…” Daylight anxiously tried to stop Wanyuan.

“Silence!” Wanyuan yelled even more loudly.

Daylight was anxious, but at the same time he didn’t want to disobey his master. In that moment, he was helplessly standing still.

He looked at brother apprentice Little Grass, with anxiousness and pleading in his eyes. Little Grass didn’t seem to understand, and tried to comfort him, “Don’t worry, master will definitely prepare you to defeat Silver Moon in three months.”

Wanyuan nodded at God of Medicine, “I’ve made up my mind. Please help my apprentice.”

God of Medicine looked at Wanyuan, then at Daylight, and began to laugh, “Old Rock, Old Rock! No matter how rare your Millenia Ginseng is, I think I could probably make a substitute in a hundred or so years, but your strange apprentice isn’t someone who comes by so easily. How about this?! You let your apprentice tell me his story, and if I’m happy from listening the story, I will help you however I can!”

Daylight heard him and was ecstatic. He said hurriedly, “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you anything, please don’t take anything from my master.”

God of Medicine looked at Daylight, and saw his face was filled with anxiousness and sincerity. He patted his bamboo basket and said, “No wonder Old Rock likes you so much. Other than people in wicked factions, who wouldn’t want an apprentice like you?”

God of Medicine actually made Daylight laugh bitterly. Going by what he said, wouldn’t Liola and Kaiser, who was on the evil side, hate him?

God of Medicine hurried again and again, so Daylight began to tell his story. Although he hadn’t been with Liola and Kaiser from the start, he had heard the story before.

Since the people hearing the stories were all from this world, they were already surprised enough when Daylight said they were from another world. They kept asking him about the other world, and seemed to not be very interested in the actual story of the Assassin Silver Moon.

Daylight had gotten thirsty from talking too much, and he had to often drag the topic back. He even had to explain magic, Knights, Maxuns, etc.

While its master was busy telling a story, Flames was also having a headache because, every time Daylight mentioned Liola’s name, Baolilong would start bawling on top of Flames’ head, and it looked pitiful with its small body.

Flames desperately tried to comfort Its Highness, saying things like “You will see Liola in three months”, but Baolilong’s cries got even more intense, “Papa, won’t come back, or you will get killed!”

Flames was speechless. Despite having confidence in its master, the difficulty of the task at hand was incredibly high. It knew full well the power difference between its master and Baolilong’s master was astronomical. It would be very difficult for them to close the gap in three years, let alone three months.

Both the storyteller and the listeners had their attentions attracted by the sound of Baolilong’s cries. Everyone examined Baolilong with a frown, and Yulie even wanted to go up and hug it to comfort the cute little guy, but she was afraid of getting anywhere close to Flames.

Baolilong slid down from the Dragon’s neck, and with its chubby legs, it ran up to Daylight. It asked desperately, “Daylight will become very very strong, right?”

Daylight nodded seriously.

“Daylight must beat papa~!” Having said this, Baolilong held out its little fist.

If Gle wanted them to fight each other to death, they must not want them to look for Liola, right? And there’s no way for Gle not to know Dragons could find their master, and thus he could be interfering.

Daylight wanted to try explaining to Baolilong, but as soon as he turned around, Baolilong had already transformed and ready to take flight.

Daylight yelled anxiously, “Flames, stop it!”

Flames immediately rushed up. Being older than Baolilong, its body and strength was slightly greater than Baolilong’s, and it was how it stopped Baolilong so it wouldn’t disappear into the air. Its flying ability was nowhere comparable to Baolilong, as it was the child of the Sacred White Dragon.

Although uncertain where papa is, Baolilong didn’t seem to care. It desperately struggled, hoping to quickly go find papa. This made it hard for Flames to hold him, despite being slightly stronger, but the difference wasn’t much, especially since Baolilong was using all of its strength to struggle.

Everyone looked with shock at these two giant Dragons entangled, and the ground felt like an earthshake. Those timid ones had already ran off, and the only one remained were just God of Medicine and Wanyuan, whom were both in awe.

Daylight ran up and yelled, “Baolilong, don’t be like this. You can’t possibly pinpoint Liola’s position, and you can’t see anyone in the air anyhow. No matter how far you fly, you may still not be able to find him.”

Hearing Daylight, Baolilong stared blankly for a moment, then stopped struggling. But after thinking for a while, it used a Dragon roar with determination, “Baolilong will walk!”

Then, it actually stood up, and even carried Flames on its back.

Seeing the spectacular scene of a Dragon carrying another Dragon, Daylight didn’t know whether to smile or cry.

He went up to stop it, “No, if you go like this, as soon as you go, people will attack you.”

Baolilong shook its body, and Flames fell from its back. Then it turned back into a small child, and said with determination, “Baolilong will go find papa.”

Seeing Baolilong was really about to walk away as a 5 year old child (while naked), Daylight wanted to go up and stop him.

Baolilong pouted its face, and spit out a bolt of electricity as it yelled, “You’re not papa! You can’t touch Baolilong.”

Daylight had little time to react, and as he was about to be hit by the bolt, a figure jumped in front of him and yelled, “Your Highness, please don’t be mad. Master didn’t do it intentionally.”

Baolilong probably also knew Daylight was just worried about it. But as a Dragon Knight, Baolilong thought Daylight should know not to touch another’s Dragon.

Baolilong stood still though still pouting. A figure also walked to Baolilong, and took it up into its arms. Strangely, Baolilong didn’t seem to resist at all.

The figure slowly turned around. It looked like a young person of about fifteen or so of age, and it had an elegant face. Its golden eyes seem to suggest a sense of maturity a person of this age shouldn’t have.

One could call it a young man, but it had no characteristics a male should have, or one could call it a young woman, but its chest was flat, and it had no breasts either. It had a head full of long and dense red hair, reaching all the way to its knees, covering its naked body.

“Flames…” Daylight sighed in relief. Luckily Flames was there, otherwise, not being able to touch Baolilong, Daylight really didn’t know how to stop it from leaving.

Since Flames hadn’t matured, and therefore had no gender, the people standing by didn’t know where to put their eyes on its naked body. By this point, Yulie had already tilted her head with a blush.

Daylight, on the other hand, carelessly walked over. He had already seen Flames in its human form, but Flames’ capacity to maintain human form was a bit low, and therefore could only transform into a person for a short time. It was also difficult for Flames to maintain in this form, so it usually preferred not to.

“Master, since you will be training, how about I take Its Highness to find its master?” Flames suggested.

Daylight seemed shocked, “You can turn into a human for a long time now?”

Flames nodded, then explained, “With some effort, I could probably do it for five to six hours. When I’m sure there’s no humans nearby, I could take Its Highness as a Dragon, and if there are people, I will take my human form.”

Daylight thought with a frown. Flames and Baolilong would indeed have nothing to do while he’s training, so it would be better to let them to find Liola in the meantime. If they really do find him, Daylight could use his telepathy with Flames to talk to Liola for a plan.

Besides, Daylight had faith in Flames. After all, Flames was older, and it was mature by nature, so it should be able to take good care of itself and Baolilong.

Daylight then nodded, “Okay, you take Baolilong to look for Liola. But if you don’t find him, come back ten days before the duel at the latest.”

“Yes, master.”

Flames nodded seriously, then turned around to leave. As a Dragon, it had nothing to pack. This world was filled with forests and grasslands, so food could be hunted on the way.

“Flames!” Baolilong yelled.

Flames answered reflexively, “Yes, Your Highness?”

Baolilong looked with skeptical eyes, “What about clothes? Papa said I can’t go out without wearing clothes?”

“Did he?” Flames looked at its own naked body, and tilted its head, “It should be fine? I don’t have a gender yet.”

Baolilong nodded somewhat understandingly. It didn’t care, since Dragons never wore clothes. After deciding not to wear anything, the two “people” happily resumed their journey to find papa.

“W-wait!” Daylight tried to stop them, and he began to regret. Perhaps letting these two “people” walk out like this wouldn’t be a good idea…

* * *

“A bit stronger, and faster with the fireballs.”

Kaiser continued to sustain the headache resulting from overexerting his spiritual force. Every fireball he shot, he felt like someone was breaking his head open with an axe, but White Bombs continued shoot out from his gun one by one.

Gle’s cold voice beside him felt like it was coming from afar, almost to the point where he couldn’t hear. The only thing in his mind now was, three months, three months…

‘Liola was too strong!’ This was something Kaiser had never thought he’d hate so much. He even hoped Lancelot was here, so he could seal Liola again.

Eventually, darkness fell before his eyes. But Kaiser used the edge of his gun and slammed his thighs, forcefully using the pain to drag his consciousness back. Another White Fireball shot out from the barrel of his gun.

As Kaiser yelled loudly, a larger-than-before Fireball shot out into the sky. It then exploded like a giant firework in the sky, as if it was being juxtaposed with Kaiser’s odd declaration,

“Damn! It’s not your time to die!”

* * *

Daylight was naked, and soaked in a large, wooden barrel. The barrel was full of nauseating slime, and any ordinary person would want to vomit and get as far away from it as possible.

Daylight, however, didn’t seem to smell anything. He sat cross-legged in it, and exerted the Ki he just learnt around and around his body. Signals of exhaustion came from his body, and overexerting his Ki made him feel pain in every nerve in his body, but he continued to sit like a statue. There was no pain on his face, instead there was only unequalled determination.

A middle-aged man sitting next to him looked out the window, then said, “The effect of the medicine is gone. Go train outside. I’ll tell you when the next barrel of medicine is done.”

Daylight opened his eyes slowly, and nodded to the middle-aged man.

Jumping out of the wooden barrel, Daylight grabbed his shirt and pants to put them on. He didn’t seem to even notice the disgusting slime on him, and he didn’t bother even washing his hand, because he didn’t have the time.

He stepped out of the medicine room, and quickly walked to the yard. Wanyuan was leisurely sitting on a bench. Without even looking at Daylight, he pointed his pipe at the four bags next to him, then resumed smoking leisurely.

Daylight quickly tied those four bags to his four limbs, then ran up the hill without even looking back.

Wanyuan looked as Daylight ran away. He tapped his pipe, then said to Little Grass next to him, “After supper, you go find something even heavier.”

Hearing this, Little Grass said with a long face, “Master, those bags were already filled with iron. If you want something heavier, then we’d have to buy gold.”

“Then buy gold.” Wanyuan tapped his pipe again.

* * *

‘Where could I find Anise?’ Liola walked into the Bandit Mountains without any reason or logic. He believed, the place where he first arrived in this world was where he would find the answer he had been searching for.

No matter how much area the Bandit Mountains spans, Liola walked through all of it step by step. His body was not tired, but his soul was more tired than the twenty years of training he had received from Gle.

On one hand he desperately wanted to find Anise, on another he felt uneasy. This dilemma made his soul feel even more tortured.

“Promise me, you won’t kill anymore, okay?”

‘Anise, if you’re the White Dragon, you have no reason to ask me not to kill, right? After all, didn’t the White Dragon want me to kill the Dragon Emperor, right?’

“I lied to you, the necklace can only allow one person leave…”

‘Then, how did Yasha go with me? Anise, would you give me an explanation?’

Yandi quietly followed Liola and looked at his back, then into the sky. The intense sunlight had a color similar to Anise’s cream hair. She began to talk towards the sun,

“Sister, please don’t lie to him…”

* * *

The three people who arrived here together, went on three different journeys, all in pursuit of the same final result.

Chapter 5 : One Soul, Two Names

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

Liola walked through most of the Bandit Mountains with Yandi, but Anise was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t resist holding the Dragon Cross Necklace tightly. Of course, the necklace was now with him instead of Yandi.

“Where are you?” Liola murmured. However, unexpectedly, the necklace did not emit any light, nor make any sound.

Although Liola became more anxious, Yandi seemed to be unexpectedly patient, despite her normal hot temper. In fact, because of the rumor of Anise being alive, she patiently went everywhere Anise had been. Even though she didn’t see Anise, she proved the rumors were not groundless with her own power.

Being keen eyed, she suddenly saw something floating around on a tree from afar. She beckoned, “Follow me.” And then she began to run without turning her head.

She grabbed the small piece of cloth hanging on a tree branch. In Liola’s eyes, there was nothing special about it, but Yandi examined it attentively, while she thought out loud,

“Green, embroidered, and the material is light. This should be a piece of cloth from a woman’s clothing.”

“So what?” Liola tried to be patient and asked.

“Why would a woman be around here? Even if there was a woman among Bandits, she would never walk alone in these forests.”

Yandi gestured around as she continued to explain, “Look, the grass and trees are all undamaged, so obviously there weren’t many who passed by. Perhaps it was a few, or maybe even one. A group of a few people including a woman is unlikely to be passing by here. Even I wouldn’t dare to walk through here if it weren’t for you being here.”

“Is it Anise?” Liola’s heart skipped a beat.

“I don’t know. Sister has no habit of using fragrance, and her clothes weren’t anything special. It’s impossible to determine if it was her just from this cloth.”

Yandi said honestly, then continued, “Since we are basically wandering around aimlessly, we may as well follow this lead.”

Liola nodded, and he lead Yandi in the direction where the cloth pointed. On the way, he cut off the branches, so Yandi could have a much easier time to walk through. She looked at the small path the Assassin created for her, and followed quietly, not sure how she felt about it.

After walking for a short while, the Assassin suddenly stopped with a frown. Yandi opened her mouth and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Ahead of us, there’s someone, just one person.”

Yandi was shock. After exchanging glances with the Assassin, they ran forward as fast as they could.

Liola grabbed Yandi’s arm and ran with her. For some reason, he was now afraid of seeing Anise by himself, so even if it slowed him down, he still held onto Yandi.

“There’s an empty space!” Yandi yelled, and Liola had already noticed it. They continued to run as fast as they could, but as soon as they stepped into the empty space, Liola’s sensed the person had suddenly disappeared. The person… was gone. Not moving away, just suddenly disappeared.

Liola glanced around the place. He was certain he sensed someone here before, so how could it suddenly disappear?

“Just a plain, large rock…”

Liola heard Yandi’s sound of murmur, then turned around to look. An ordinary rock appeared in front of his eyes. With the trees and grass around it, this rock seemed rather out of the ordinary.

Yandi walked slowly towards the rock, and suddenly noticed there were words carved into the rock. She read it out loud, “Who you are and where you’re from are not important, what’s important is who you want to be, and where you want to go.”

Every word Yandi uttered left a mark in Liola’s mind.

‘This couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Could these words be left behind by Anise? Why would she leave words behind, but be unwilling to appear before me?’

Liola walked towards the rock, and writing on the rock was identical to the letter Anise had left him. He could not help but stroke the writing lightly on the rock.

Liola stared blankly. He had never thought about such a dilemma. He was hesitating, but he didn’t know why he was hesitating.

Anise was the most important, isn’t it? But Kaiser, Daylight, Purity, and Meinan, they’re important too. Which one was more important? The Assassin couldn’t decide.

Facing the uncertain Assassin, Yandi sighed, “Silver Moon, do you still not understand? You’ve met good companions and Anise. Anise doesn’t want to interfere with your decision, and your companions wouldn’t, either. On the contrary, they are all waiting for your decision. You must choose your own path.”

“My… decision…” Liola panicked. Was he the one who had to decide? He had to decide by himself? No one would tell him what to do? Suggest to him, or even commanding him would be better.

“We can stop looking. When you have decided on an answer, everything will come to you.”

Yandi quietly walked away, to give Liola some personal space. She decided to do something more realistic, such as, putting up two hammocks, starting a fire, cook some food, etc.

“Taking good care of Silver Moon is probably the best way I could repay you.” Yandi raised her head to look at the full moon. Its color resembled Anise’s long hair.

“But, what exactly is he in your heart?”

* * *

Liola touched the writing on the rock, and repeated the words again and again, but the answer did not come to him, and instead make him fall even deeper into his perplexity.

He didn’t know how long this lasted when he felt a bit stiff in his body. He changed his posture, and sat on top of the rock, but he unknowingly lied down slowly. This was just like the first memory he had of this world. Luckily the rock was large enough that, if he curled slightly, he could lie on the rock with his face to the sky.

The sky was already covered with his stars. Liola remembered the sun was still up just then. It wasn’t until now that he realized he had already been thinking since when the sun was still up to when the sky was covered in stars. No… perhaps even longer. When he first woke up at Skyward Overlook, he had probably began to think, and he was never brave enough to admit it.

“Which one do I feel more familiar, the smell of metal, or the smell of wood?”

“Magic, sword, Mechas, Dragons… Dragons!”

Liola suddenly stood up. Crap! He had completely forgotten about Baolilong. Where was it now? Hopefully not where the Leader was at?

Liola felt anxious. No one knew the Leader’s experiments better than him. He would never allow the possibility of Baolilong becoming the materials for experiment.

“And Kaiser, Kaiser…” Liola’s face went pale.

How could he be so crazy, leaving Kaiser and Baolilong with the Leader? If something happened to either of them, he would never be able to forgive himself.

“And Purity and Meinan, how exactly are they in the other world? Could the war have started?” Liola sat up with frustration, “They probably wouldn’t participate in the war, right? They’re still too young…” Liola completely forgot that Meinan was actually older than him.

“Lanski and Jasmine, what kind of reactions did they have when they found out I’m Silver Mask?” Liola felt worried.

Wait… if he really was the Dragon Emperor’s son, then wouldn’t it mean Lanski was his twin sister? For some reason, Liola knew instinctively, Lanski wouldn’t be happy to know he’s her brother.

“What are you thinking about?” He heard Yandi’s voice, and then she put a plate filled with food in Liola’s hands.

“A lot of things.” Liola suddenly realized how many things he had to worry about.

“Things on which side?” Yandi asked casually, with her eyes looking at her own plate.

“The other side.” Liola held the steaming food, but had little appetite.

“Oh, thinking about those two girls? Lanski and Jasmine? It would’ve been a dilemma, because they both sound decent, different personalities, but both are good. And they both liked you, but… isn’t one of them your twin sister? Then there’s nothing much left to worry.” Yandi smiled somewhat ambiguously.

“I don’t understand what you mean…” Liola stared blankly at Yandi.

Yandi probably knew the Assassin’s personality. For the two girls, she explained patiently, “They both like you, do you understand?”

“I know, and I like them too. They’re both good people.” Liola answered naturally.

Yandi closely examined the Assassin, then shook her head, “No, you don’t understand. Their ‘like’ isn’t the ordinary like, not the kind of like Purity feels towards you.”

Liola hesitated, “What’s the difference?”

He really was an oblivious ice cube. Yandi felt a bit sorry for the two distant girls. But to someone who had just learnt what friendship was, to learn the more complex feeling of love, it would require time and someone’s help!

Yandi couldn’t help but laugh, did she want to be the one to teach him? It would be interesting! She couldn’t wait to see the Assassin’s expressions.

“M-marry? Wife?” Liola’s mind was suddenly in chaos. What was worse was he knew full well what marry meant, and he also understood the meaning of ‘wife’, but he was clueless of the deeper meaning. He didn’t understand why people married?

‘How come he doesn’t have much of reaction?’ Yandi closely observed the Assassin’s face, but all she saw was his blank face, and felt a bit disappointed.

“Why would they want to marry me? And why doesn’t Purity want to marry me?” Liola suddenly asked with a flash across his eyes.

“Uh…”

‘What kind of question is this?’ Yandi was rather dumbfounded. ‘How exactly was Silver Moon raised?’

Yandi said with a stutter, “B-because it’s friendship between you and Purity, but the other two feel love towards you. Just like you, you feel differently towards Purity than the other two girls, right…?”

The last question, Yandi was asking out of pity for the other two girls, she was trying to ascertain which of them Silver Mask actually felt love towards.

This question was difficult for Liola.

‘Is it different between Purity, Lanski, and Jasmine?’

He thought briefly, thinking that it was somewhat different: Purity knew him longer, and spent more time with him than the others; other than that…

“For example, which one of them makes you feel your heart beat?” Yandi tried to push the thought along.

Liola glanced her back with strangeness, “My heart always beats, if it didn’t, wouldn’t I be dead?”

“… Are you an idiot?” Yandi snapped back, “No wonder you didn’t understand love for such a long time, because no one dare to explained it to you.”

Liola was speechless.

Yandi wasn’t one to give up, she asked again, “Is there someone who, whenever you don’t see her, you’d feel worried? Or if any tears of hers showed up, you would feel a pain in your heart? Or is there anyone who, no matter what she did, you would forgive her?”

“Yes!” Liola answered honestly.

Yandi’s eyes shone and prompted him to continue, “Who?”

He answered honestly, “Baolilong. Whenever I don’t see it, I would be worried it might have gotten in trouble. Whenever it cries, I couldn’t just ignore it, and no matter how much trouble Baolilong runs into, I couldn’t really get mad.”

Hearing this answer, Yandi buried her head into her hands, “I give up, sorry, Lanski, Jasmine, I can’t help you…”

“?” Liola looked at Yandi with confusion.

Though Yandi’s expression was full of “You can’t be saved”, Liola began to smile, and even began to eat the food out of the plate, as if he suddenly felt relaxed.

“Hey! What’s with you?” Yandi didn’t understand.

“I’ve decided, I want to go back.”

Yandi couldn’t believe he had actually made his mind. She had to ask, “Why did you suddenly decide?”

Liola stopped eating, and explained, “Everyone I thought of, everything I care about, are not in this world. I am here, but everything I worry about belongs in the other world.”

“But, while I was in the other world, other than Anise, I thought nothing of this world. I was never worried about whether I could come back, because I never wanted to come back.”

Yandi heard his explanation, and said slowly, “This is, after all, not your world. Go back, Silver Moon, no, you are no longer Silver Moon. When that boy mispronounced your name, you were born to a new name and new life, Liola…”

“No matter what happens when you come back, what you run into, or what the result is, even if it’s death, I trust you will never regret it.”

Liola answered with a troubled look, “I don’t fear death. I just fear being a burden to my companions.”

“Just stop!” Yandi glared at him, “Men die for friendship! They are willing to die for you, and you are willing to die for them. That’s friendship, or are you doubting your companions’ friendship towards you?”

Liola desperately shook his head. He didn’t doubt it one bit, nor had he ever doubted it. Those people… for him, how many rank-X people had they faced? For him, how many dangerous places did they brave? For him, they even tried their best to adapt to a new world.

For some reason, Liola’s eyes teared up. He was obviously not sad. Contrarily, he should be very happy, but tears kept coming…

“All right! Let’s not worry about sister Anise for now. When it’s time, she will appear. You are worried about your companions being at the Leader’s place, right?”

Yandi patted Liola’s shoulder, as if she didn’t see Liola’s teary eyes. She turned away and said, “I’m going to sleep. We still have a long journey back tomorrow.”

“Long Yandi.” Liola suddenly called her name.

Yandi stopped, but didn’t turn around. She knew this wasn’t the right time to turn around. She quietly listened to Liola.

“Thank you.”

Yandi did not answer. She climbed up into her hammock, then drift off to sleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

When Yandi was asleep, Liola was still lying down on the rock. After all, sleeping on a rock or a hammock made little difference to him. He really wanted to lie here, though he had no idea why.

“Liola…”

Liola suddenly sat up, and looked in the direction of the sound. Within the forest, under the faint moonlight, with cream white hair, a person with kind yet playful smile, dressed in simple clothing, was waving to him with a hand full of wounds and calluses…

Liola was breathless, “Anise.”

Anise was smiling lightly, with her index finger gesturing on her mouth, she waved her hand to beckon him to come.

Liola, however, turned and looked at Yandi, wanting to wake her up. He knew Yandi had always been looking for Anise.

“No…”

Liola suddenly turned to look at Anise, and saw her shaking her head with a painful expression on her face. Her eyes were looking at Yandi with sympathy, but at the same time, an unspeakable refrain.

Seeing Anise’s expressions, Liola did not wake up Yandi, but when he passed the bonfire, he used his Ki to pulverize most of the wood there.

‘It’s so cold in the mountains, without the fire, she will hopefully wake up… Yandi, please wake up…’

Without any more hesitation, Liola walked towards Anise, and she also turned to leave. She maintained a few steps away from Liola.

After a while of walking, she finally jumped up to a tree branch high above like a fairy, then elegantly sat on top of it, while Liola was standing quietly below.

Anise stared at him, her eyes filled with caring and love. It was impossible for Liola to ask things like, “Are you using me?” Nobody would believe someone looking at him with such care would be using him.

“This is a story that, no matter if you want to listen to or not, I have to tell you, but please believe me when I tell you I don’t want to harm you. Please listen to the very end, okay?”

Liola nodded. In the past, he might not be able to agree, but now, he didn’t seem to care anymore, because he had other things to care about — his companions.

“Bairui was the Princess of the Sacred White Dragon, the current Dragon Emperor’s Dragon, and also Black Dragon Miluo’s wife, your Dragon’s mother.”

“Where should I begin with the story?”

“Right, did you know? Back in that world of ours, there was only one continent to begin with.”

“Once upon a time, the first Zhuogen commanded the largest army of Knights in history and marched across the continent. The dozens of countries there had been trampled over, leaving only three of them struggling to defend themselves. The three of them, with their magic powers, could not defend against the impending army of Knights. The three of them would rather see their homes burn than to let their lands be conquered, they formed a short alliance. Hundreds of thousands of Magicians united to activated the strongest magic they knew, and forcefully broke the continent into three.”

“I don’t know how many people died or got injured back then. The continents continued to move. Although the Zhuogens did not die, they had no choice but stay in the continent where their Palaces were. The Knights, being unfamiliar with magic, could do nothing about the terrifying atmospheric changes or the movement of the continents, and they scrambled for their own survival as they saw the other two lands drift away. When the world had calmed down countless number of years later, the previously young and powerful Zhuogen, who even signed blood contracts with the Dragons and shared their longevity, had aged and died.”

“But he never gave up his dream to conquer the entire world. I don’t know how, but he managed to retain his ambition, into his own descendent, into the heart of the next Dragon Emperor.”

“That was when it started. The Prince who succeeded the Dragon Emperor must have, at the day of his coronation, which was also the day the previous Dragon Emperor died, ate the heart from the corpse of his father, to maintain the same ambition to conquer the world.”

Anise saw that Liola looked somewhat terrified, she smiled, “It’s very ridiculous, right? What’s even more ridiculous, I was told all these by my master, the current Dragon Emperor.

“At the time, he was still a Prince, a Prince whose heart was warm, and anyone who saw him would say he was far too gentle to be an Emperor, but I still adored him. He was the only Prince who would play flute in the Royal Garden, only to fall asleep there. I had often hid in the bushes, listening to him play.

“I had listen for years before the slowpoke noticed me. It was then when we played together, and I had often carried him to different places, and even away from the Dragon Continent. It was when I ran into Miluo on the Yaron Plains. You probably would never believe me when I say Caffey was the one who played matchmaker between Miluo and I. Ah… Caffey was the Dragon Emperor’s name, but after he became the Dragon Emperor, he stopped having a name.”

Getting to this point, Anise suddenly began to laugh, to the point where tears appeared in the corner of her eyes, “Did you know? Because he was called Caffey, Miluo and I both called him Coffee. That was when he swore he will name his children with different names of coffee.”

Liola looked at Anise, and for some reason, Anise’s smile was making him feel sad, as if the happy events of the past had, due to the changes in people, had turned to nothing but a cruel memory.

“I chose him!”

“The Dragon Emperor at the time was not faithful, and had multiple wives. He had, in total, five Princes and seven Princesses. ‘I chose him’, practically no one understood, and even the dying Dragon Emperor was furious. He hated Caffey’s gentleness and overly kind nature.”

“But no one could interfere with his choice, and Caffey indeed end up on the throne. The day of his coronation… or I should say, that night, Caffey was extremely scared. I did not understand what he was afraid of. To become the Dragon Emperor, one must obtain the approval of a Sacred White Dragon, so it was impossible for his siblings to assassinate him or overthrow the throne. Rather, one would only have to worry about it prior to getting the approval of the Sacred White Dragon.”

“That was when Caffey told me and Miluo about the history, and what he was forced to do on his coronation ceremony….”

“He told me, he was scared, fearing he might really change, and become as cruel and ruthless as his father.

“I desperately tried to comfort him, and Miluo even joked, that someone as gentle as him, even if he were to become cruel, he would probably just go around bullying little animals.”

“Caffey laughed. None of us could believe something that happened so long ago could possibly affect the present. Later on, Caffey didn’t change, and we were all relieved, so much so that we completely forgot everything about his coronation ceremony.”

“He changed, didn’t he?” Liola had guessed what probably happened.

“Yes, he changed.” Anise said with a dim voice, “I don’t know if he changed slowly,so we never noticed, or if he changed suddenly but hid it well.”

“When Gle appeared, Miluo and I actually both had doubts. But compared to the strange Gle, we willingly closed our eyes and ears, and blindly trusted the Caffey we had known for years.”

“But he really did change.” Anise’s eyes could no longer hold back the tears, “He really wasn’t Caffey anymore, just the Dragon Emperor. Miluo knew this well, and he chose to leave the Dragon Emperor. Miluo didn’t trust him, but I couldn’t leave, not only because he was my master, but also… how could I leave him?”

“It was me who chose him, it was me who caused him to eat his father’s heart, and the person who caused him to turn into what he is was all me.”

Seeing Anise crying, Liola had no idea what to do. He could only stand beneath the tree, and stared at her blankly while accompanying her.

With tears rolling down her face, Anise settled her eyes back on Liola,

“Sorry, Liola… The truth is, only half of Mocha’s prophecy was leaked. If it was just ‘Susanna’s son would kill the Dragon Emperor’, then perhaps I wouldn’t have saved you. Although Caffey had changed, I did not want him dead, nor would I save a child who would kill his father.”

“But the true prophecy was, you will kill the Dragon Emperor, but you will not succeed him. Instead, you would end the ambition passed down through generations in the Dragon Empire, and this was also the reason why the Dragon Emperor must kill you.”

Liola was speechless for a while, but there was something he must confirm, “I… really am the Dragon Emperor’s son?”

Anise firmly nodded, “Yes, you are the Dragon Emperor’s son, Lanski’s twin brother, and the youngest Prince of the Dragon Empire.”

Although many had already said so, Liola still had his doubts, he was even in denial, “But, Anise, you…”

“I am but an illusion, Liola.” Anise’s voice sounded close and far at the same time.

“When Susanna gave you to me, I knew if I continued to stay in that world, I couldn’t possibly protect you. To the Dragon Empire and the entire race of Dragons, the Emperor will always be more important than the Prince. If the Emperor requests, I will be forced to hand you over.”

Anise said slowly, “I took you to an alien world using the magic circle Gle had left behind.”

“After all, I’m not Gle. When I activated the magic circle to force my way through dimensions, my flesh had been destroyed, so I could only send my soul into the Dragon Cross Necklace.

“Even if you drifted into an alien world, you must still one day go back to end the Dragon Empire’s ambition. In order for you not to be killed the moment you go back, I began my plan twenty years ago. I put my consciousness in a girl, and at the same time changed the girl’s appearance to look like to your elder sister’s. Don’t under estimate me, to the Sacred White Dragons, predicting a baby’s future appearance is an easy task.”

“To help fool the Dragon Emperor, I even sealed my own memory, leaving behind only a bit of arrangements and indications so I could send myself to you properly in twenty years.”

“When you went back to your original world, the Dragon Emperor used the necklace as a vessel to examine your memory. He had initially believed the existence of Anise, and he wasn’t suspicious of anything until you released Miluo.”

Anise stopped, and did not breath another word. She quietly looked at Liola, as if she was waiting for him to ask something, and she knew he must have questions.

“So… everything was fake.” Liola said bitterly. Although he knew it probably was something like this, hearing Anise say it herself was still shocking to him.

Anise suddenly laughed playfully, “The Anise who met with the top Assassin didn’t know anything at all~. She wasn’t the Sacred White Dragon Bairui, nor did she remember you were a baby she held in her arms. It wasn’t until Anise had ‘died’, did Bairui live again.”

Liola raised his head to look at Anise. Though her expression was playful, her eyes still carried sadness.

She was no longer the Anise who was carefree and only cared about saving people. At that moment, Liola truly understood. Anise was really dead. The person in front of him was no longer Anise, but rather Baolilong’s mother, Bairui.

“Anise… is dead.” Liola finally accepted the truth now.

“Yes, Anise is dead.” Bairui nodded, while saying helplessly, “Bairui is about to die, too. In fact, Bairui had already died twenty years ago.”

“You…” Liola was very shocked. He didn’t think Anise… no, Bairui would say something like that.

“My broken soul had stayed for twenty years, I’m afraid there’s nothing else I could do.”

Bairui smiled lightly, “Gle made an interesting gamble, go look for him. Remember! Next month when the moon is full, take the Dragon Cross Necklace to Duanchang Cliff. I will activate the final dimensional door and send all of you back, I will also get Gle’s daughter back, this was my agreement with him.”

“Also, please save Miluo. His personality is too rash, and he actually ran to Caffey by himself. He is probably now completely controlled by the Emperor. Lancelot is different, however, he’s also under a hypnosis… Liola, remember, do not trust anyone who gets burnt by the Dragon Cross Necklace. No matter willingly or unwillingly, getting burnt by the necklace means they’re already under the control of the Dragon Emperor…”

After she talking, Bairui fell off the tree branch.

Liola wanted to go up to catch her, but someone beat him to it, Yandi quickly caught her, and quietly looked at Bairui.

Bairui seemed to have a genuine smile, “Little Dee, have you found a good husband? You have to have a dozen little cute babies.”

“I’m not a pig, a dozen is too much. I just want two, a boy and a girl…” Yandi complained, as if she couldn’t see Bairui’s closing eyes or purple lips.

Chapter 6 : Framing

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

Kaiser slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the wooden ceiling, and immediately felt his muscles aching. Strangely enough, it was normal to have a headache from overexerting his spiritual force, so why were his muscles aching instead?

Kaiser sat up lazily and examine his surroundings, and finally found the reason.

Kaiser stretched his body as he complained, “Such an unkind bastard, he threw me on the ground to sleep overnight. At least I didn’t catch a cold.”

“Unkind bastard? Hmmph!”

Gle sat down on the fauteuil, and said with raised brows, “In the past, I threw a severely injured Li into the wild and made him crawl back. I’m already treating you well since you’re here lying on the ground. If you weren’t my descendant, you wouldn’t have received such treatment.”

“It must be a miracle for Liola to still be alive.” Kaiser finally understood.

“Hahaha, I feel the same way.” Gle smiled maliciously.

“Hey! I heard you’re familiar with the Dragon Emperor’s wife Susanna?” Kaiser suddenly asked with interest, “Then how did you not recognize Liola? I heard he looks exactly like his mother?”

Kaiser didn’t seem to have sensed the danger he was facing, and kept talking, “Oh, oh, oh. Maybe you already recognized Liola a long time ago, but because of your deceased friend… Wait, you couldn’t have possibly known Susanna was dead. So because of your old friend, you raised him and trained him well.”

Gle extended his arm and grabbed Kaiser tightly by his neck.

Kaiser finally realized his life was in danger. He first closed his mouth, but then opened them and said with a pitiful voice, “My grandmother was so lonely because you left her there, and because she was your daughter, everybody tried to kill her. She had to change her identity. If she knew her own grandchild was strangled by her own father, she would never rest in peace.”

Although Gle knew Kaiser was talking nonsense, he remembered his eldest daughter, and he gradually released his hand.

He grunted and threatened Kaiser, “Stop with your nonsense. How could I have possibly recognized Susanna’s son? Even if he was Susanna’s son, he would also be that bastard Dragon Emperor’s son. I would have still killed him in an instant.”

“Yes, yes. You would have killed him in an instant.” Kaiser smiled flatteringly.

Gle grunted again, then he remembered why he was here.

He said to Kaiser, “Right. What’s-his-face’s training is almost done, and I’ve restored Xin-something’s memory, too. Whatever happens next isn’t my responsibility. They can have their death-match for all I care.”

Although Gle seem to be somewhat ambiguous, Kaiser had a rough understanding of what he was thinking. “Lin Jiyun is already done with his training? So soon? This can’t be, unless he’s also a prodigy?”

Gle laughed coldly, terrifying Kaiser in the process.

Kaiser thought there was no good in him staying in this place, so he said “I’ll go look.” and then ran off.

* * *

“Lin Jiyun!”

Kaiser saw Lin Jiyun and Void from afar, training with sweat running from their back, such as sparring, squats, long distance running. Although their training looked difficult, it was no different than no other ordinary training. Kaiser found it strange. From what he knew, Liola’s training wasn’t anything like this.

Gle always complained about the time when he threw the ten year-old Liola into the a wolf’s den, with a few dozen wolves.

“In the end, he only managed to kill all the wolves except the Alpha Wolf. Liola was so exhausted, that when he was fought the Alpha Wolf, both of them fell to the ground. What an idiot!”

Kaiser exclaimed, “He could already stir up a wolf’s den at the age of ten? He must have slashed them so much that his knife must have gotten dull.”

“Oh, it didn’t get dull, because I didn’t give him one.”
“…”

In addition, when Liola was twelve years old, he was teleported to one thousand kilometers away to perform some task, but he took a whole month before he was able to get back to the organization. “Is he directionally challenged?”

Kaiser asked, “Did you give him a map?”

“My ass! I don’t use maps, so where would I get one to give to him?”

Kaiser asked again, “Did he ask for directions?”

Gle replied, “Who would he ask? No one knew where Shalong Hall’s training spot is, except people from the organization.”

Both of them quieted. So how did Liola get back to the organization?

In another scenario, Gle thought Liola didn’t exercise his Ki enough, so he personally monitored him, forcing him to continuously use his Ki.

Kaiser asked, “So how many times did he exercise his Ki?”

Gle responded, “I don’t know, I fell asleep. When I woke up, that guy was always spitting blood, and his life was in always danger. He had already forgotten how many times he had exercised his Ki.”

For the past two months, hearing Gle’s many complaints, Kaiser had finally realized Liola was as resilient as a cockroach, and anyone whom Gle called an idiot was actually a real prodigy.

For everyone else less than a prodigy, Gle would often not even remember their name. For example, Lin Jiyun and Void had been around Gle for the past two months, but his names for them were still ‘what’s-his-face’ and ‘Vo-something’. Judging from this, Void’s talent was above Lin Jiyun’s. At least Gle remembered a part of his name.

Seeing Kaiser walking towards them, Lin Jiyun and Void stopped training and met him halfway. However, Kaiser didn’t seem to acknowledge them, he was deep in thought. Sometimes, a bitter smile would appear on his face, but sometimes he would just shake his head. Lin Jiyun and Void looked at each other, not knowing what they should do.

“Nothing, right, the Leader told me he had already restored Xin Jietian’s memory and returned everything to normal. Lin Jiyun, you better think of a plan to destroy Xin Jietian within a month. You must make him suffer so much that he would rather die, otherwise it would happen to you instead.” Kaiser warned.

“One month? Why are we in such a hurry?” Lin Jiyun was very surprised. He only had one month to push an Martial Arts Alliance Leader off his throne?

“Because in one month, Gle wants to watch the duel between me, Daylight, and Liola. My training is almost complete, so the rest is up to me. Also, the Leader will not have me as entertainment, so if you bore in the next month, you might die a horrible death.”

Kaiser’s explained in strange terms, and he believed he knew Gle quite well. In fact, Gle was practically watching the whole issue between Lin Jiyun and Xin Jietian as if it was some sort of entertainment program.

Lin Jiyun’s face was terrified. No matter how many ridiculous things come out of Kaiser’s mouth, for some reason, Lin Jiyun believed every word of it, as if that was exactly what the Leader thought.

“Then what should I do?” Lin Jiyun panicked.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already come up a script for you!” Kaiser said as if he were an expert, “But Void must cooperate with me, okay?”

“Hmmph! Take this.” Kaiser’s hand reached behind him, then took out a fairly large bamboo basket filled to the brink with eggs of sorts.

These eggs weren’t ordinary eggs, and Lin Jiyun was fully aware of this fact, since he had bought one from Gle. There were all sorts of strange circles drawn on it, and as soon as a drop of blood is dripped on them, they could summon all sorts of bizarre monsters.

“What about in reality?” Void asked with interest.
“In reality, his power really is much higher!”

Void slipped, but then asked hurriedly, “Then what should we do?”

“Hmmph! So what if he’s strong? Who could possibly be stronger than Gle 1-on-1? But he was still forced to an alien world by Dragon Emperor.”

Kaiser put his hands on waist, and yelled loudly, “Being despicable is what really matters in the world!”

“Despicable?” Lin Jiyun and Void looked at Kaiser, who was speaking as if he was telling the one and only truth.

“That’s right! Since he already framed someone, why do you have to beat him righteously? In terms of being despicable and framing, who’s better than me, Kaiser? Let me tell you, no matter how many hundreds or even thousands of powerful subordinates he has, when he mess with me, Kaiser, they are all useless!”

Kaiser laughed sinisterly, then gestured at Lin Jiyun and Void with his hand to make them come up for a whisper.

“Isn’t… this a bit too despicable?” Lin Jiyun suddenly took a few steps back, and yelled in shock.

Void’s face was also hard to look at, “That’s practically shameless…”

“If you don’t want the Leader to tear you into pieces, keep listening.” Kaiser glared at them both, and dragged their ears back while he kept murmuring things into their ears.

* * *

In the following month, the whole Martial Arts World was in turmoil. At first, Xin Jietian hosted the Symposium, but when the winner, Void from the Skyward Overlook, was going up to get the sword as a reward, Xin Jietian suddenly went back on his word, and did not give the sword to Void

(Kaiser: “Duh! I secretly put Xin Jietian’s most treasured sword as the reward, of course he wouldn’t be willing to hand it away.”)

Void left in anger, and spread the words to gather Taoists around the world so he could right this injustice. He also declared to the world, despite Xin Jietian not being true to his world, hunting demons was a Taoist’s responsibility, and because of it, Void would give all he had to fulfill his responsibility, even if it took his life.

The Martial Arts world had all accused Xin Jietian of his wrongdoings, and at the same time praised Void for his thoughtfulness for the world.

During this chaos, rumors had it that Shalong Hall’s Assassins had been seen entering and exiting where Xin Jietian lived, and a servant had been killed by Xin Jietian (the servant killed was a special paper human donated by Master Lee), because this servant found something, and another servant hiding outside the window had saw it: it was a Pentacle Token, and everyone knew it was the token from Shalong Hall.

(Kaiser: “I risked my life and stole one from the Leader!” Void murmured, “Really? How come I saw you pick one up from a corner?”)

The alliance of Taoists led by Void went every which way to catch the demons, and to find the source of them. They finally found eggs with strange painting on them, and they found out they could be used to summon demons when they touch blood.

At this time, the few servants who ran out of Xin Jietian’s home revealed they had seen those eggs in his house, a full basket of them!

“We ran away as far as we could. No matter how much the pay is, we still have to be alive to spend it, right?” A green-haired adolescent said to Void while in shock. Of course, he said so in front of many Taoists and many Martial Artists who joined voluntarily.

When Void requests to search Xin Jietian’s home, Xin Jietian was infuriated. He desperately denied any servants of his running away and the possibility he had those strange eggs in his house. But finally, due to the pressure from the entire Martial Arts World, he had no choice but allow Void and others enter to search.

The search yielded no results initially, but when Void and others were leaving with disappointment, Xin Jietian’s house roof was suddenly breached by a ton of monsters. It was obvious the demons came out of the house. After a brief chaos, Void led them to finally eliminate them.

(Void sacrificed a dozen drops of his blood, and secretly left them in the house.)

Now, even Xin Jietian was completely speechless.

To add insult to injury, the exiled, wanted criminal Lin Jiyun came back. His body was stricken with wounds, and he wore a white cloth on his forehead, with “Xin Jietian, return my family’s lives to me!” written on it in blood.

He knelt in front of Xin Jietian’s door everyday, and always with a white cloth on his body, which also had Xin Jietian’s entire plan to kill the previous Alliance Leader and to frame his entire family written on it in blood.

At first, some people rushed out, tore up Lin Jiyun’s blood notes, and beat him senselessly. Lin Jiyun would yell into the sky and shout the heavens were being blind. It was then when snow flurries suddenly began to fall from the otherwise clear sky. (A new wide-area attack spell Kaiser had recently learnt; Blizzard, a weaker version of it).

Everyone were already skeptical of what Xin Jietian had said before, and now seeing this, eight out of ten believed what Lin Jiyun said. Furthermore, many of them believed the source of the demons were actually Xin Jietian.

[T/N: In Chinese believes, snow in the month of June or July, or in clear skies, often indicated some great wrongdoing had been committed, so the fact that he cursed the heavens and it began to snow would often convey some truth to his story to the populace.]

Finally, the Martial Arts World could no longer accept this ridiculous Alliance Leader. Many of them allied together, preparing to overthrow him. Xin Jietian felt like he was in a dead end, so he hid inside his own home.

“Why? Why would it turn to this?” Xin Jietian said with bloodshot eyes. Both the ground and the table was covered in alcohol bottles.

A figure slowly materialized in front of him, and he said lazily, “When you frame others, you should have thought of the possibility of being framed.”

A person surely appeared. A figure covered in blood appeared in front of Xin Jietian, but it looked somewhat blurred. Xin Jietian, with the last of his courage and his doubt of ghosts, swung the sword towards it.

The sword cut straight through the figure, as if it was swung through nothing but air. Obviously there was nothing there…

“AHHH… ghost!”

Xin Jietian screamed loudly as he saw the ghost charge towards to him. Finally, he fell onto the ground. His eyes were blank, and his mouth was drooling. It looked like he had gone crazy.

The ghost figure disappeared, and three people walked into the room.

“I can’t believe this guy would end like this.” Void sighed.

“Father… Jiyun finally avenged you!” Tears rolled down Lin Jiyun’s face, and he was wearing the same bloodied clothes like the ghost.

“Ghost… was just a simple mirage.”

A few large mirrors were floating behind Kaiser. Since Xin Jietian had gone insane, the mirrors were no longer required. Kaiser let those mirrors fall to the ground, as if he was trying to use the sound of broken mirrors to celebrate the beginning of a new era.

Chapter 7 : The Common Result

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, Cindy, and StellarAshes.

Liola and Yandi cremated Anise’s remains, or maybe it was Bairui’s body. Yandi generously gave the ashes to Liola, and cautioned him, “You have to bring sister back to her husband.”

Liola nodded, and tightly held the urn in his hand. Though Miluo was under the Dragon Emperor’s control, even it was for Anise, for Baolilong, or even for the fact that Miluo had once let him go, Liola felt he had an obligation to save Miluo.

This was when Liola finally said goodbye to Yandi, not wanting her to follow him back to the Leader, especially with his unpredictable mood. If he were to go crazy and start killing people, Liola knew he would barely be able to save himself, let alone Yandi, and she also knew of this fact. If the Leader was really set on killing Liola, then her presence would end up being a burden rather than help, so it was better off if she didn’t go.

“On the next full moon, I will go to Duanchang Cliff.” Yandi threw these few words, then parted from Liola.

Liola stared at Yandi’s back until he had lost sight of her. He then turned and walked back the way he came from, anxious to go back to his companions. Liola thought briefly, then decided to summon Baolilong because the road was far too long, and he was very worried about Kaiser and Baolilong.

‘Baolilong? Baolilong?’

Liola called again and again, but not getting even a single response, it made Liola even more anxious, and he sped up his pace even more. For each call unanswered, his footsteps went a bit faster, and the whole day went by like this. Even for Liola, keeping up at full speed along with using telepathy gave him a terrible migraine, and he was forced to rest at a small inn. He ate a bit of food, meditated for a couple of hours, then continued on his way.

While walking on a crowded street, Liola was blocked by onlookers. When he was about to impatiently circle around the crowd, a familiar yell rang out.

“Baolilong will bite you to death~!”

It was accompanied by the laughter of the onlookers, and Liola charged and pushed everyone in front of him and yelled, “Baolilong!”

The scene Liola saw was rather strange to him, and no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand what was going on. Baolilong was lying on its stomach on a person’s back. The person was not Kaiser, but instead a red-haired beautiful girl, and this girl was surrounded by a dozen brutes.

When the two heard Liola’s scream, they turned their heads, revealing happy expressions. The girl pushed the brutes back and ran towards Liola, but this made the brutes very unhappy, and the dozen of them rushed up, blocking the girl from Liola.

Now both Baolilong and the girl were angry. She pulled back her lip to reveal her sharp canine teeth, looking like a beast threatening the brutes menacingly.

Hearing what Liola had said, the girl returned to normal, and replied respectfully, “Yes, Master of Its Highness.”

She indeed rushed towards Liola and pushed away the obstructing brutes so hard that they went flying. The onlookers looked at her in surprise, wondering where her strength came from while guessing the silver-eyed man’s identity along with his relationship to the girl, and so on.

The silver-eyed man touched the girl’s face while everyone was looking, and spoke in a language they could not understand. Seeing them act intimately, the onlookers whispered with flushed faces,

“They must be husband and wife?”
“Of course, didn’t you see how cute of a child they have together?”

“No, I’ve yet to have a gender.” Flames took a step back. Though it was not to the point of being repulsive as Baolilong found it to be, being touched by a person other than its master still felt uncomfortable.

[T/N: This seems to violate a previous consistency when Yulie tried to touch Flames during the meal, that’s what the author said.]

“Just like Baolilong? When will you have genders then?” Liola reached out to take Baolilong, who wrapped its arms and legs around Liola, holding on tightly. If it wasn’t Liola it was holding, and instead was someone with less strength, his rib cages would probably have been pulverized by Baolilong’s tight hug.

Flames answered honestly, “When we mature. Different Dragons mature at different ages. Us Fire Dragons mature fairly early, around a hundred years of age.”

Knowing Liola was worried about Baolilong, Flames immediately added, “Sacred White Dragons, on the other hand, have a varying time for maturity. They vary from fifty to more than five hundred years. Their growth depends mainly not on their age, but instead their master’s.”

“Me?” Liola did not understand. So Baolilong maturity depended on him?

Flames nodded, and was about to elaborate further, but the brutes around them had another agenda in mind. They yelled, and the dozen of them surrounded them, speaking in all kinds of vulgarity.

“The boobs are a bit small, but her face makes my heart itch!” One of the brutes drooled as he stared at Flames’ face.

Another brute was examining Liola, and even gulped down his saliva. “No man could be this delicate, she must be a crossdressing girl.”

If these two were normal people, they would’ve been infuriated by what the brutes said. But for Liola and Flames, one was an oblivious Assassin, and the other wasn’t even human. Not only did they not get angry, they practically ignored the brutes. They continued using their language to discuss what had happened in the recent days, including the strange duel Gle decided.

Liola listened and found it strange. Couldn’t he just purposely lose to Daylight and Kaiser? But how could Gle let them go so easily? Liola was in doubt, believing Gle must have a way to force him to fight against Kaiser and Daylight with their lives on the line.

Liola frowned, and wondered whether he should find Kaiser and Daylight and hide for a month, then go to Duanchang Cliff during the next full moon… But as Anise said, she had a deal with Gle, so wouldn’t it mean Gle knew about this already?

Sigh.

Liola sighed in frustration, and the brutes around them realized the two weren’t paying any attention to them. One of them wanted to hold Flames forcefully, but Flames pouted, then pushed him away. He flew for a dozen meters before he stopped, and then fell on the ground, unable to get up.

The other brutes hesitated, and thought they had ran into some difficult opponents. But looking at Flames and Liola’s faces, they weren’t willing to give up, so they all unsheathed their weapons and charged. But, as if they were in slow motion, the brutes got slower and slower, until even their eyelids closed, and they all fell to the ground.

The onlookers were also not an exception: at first they looked sleepy, then they slowly fell to the ground, snoring.

Liola looked around, and saw that, even in sleep, Baolilong wouldn’t let go. With its stubborn little face, it was still talking in its sleep, “Papa don’t leave Baolilong, Baolilong will be good from now on…”

Liola in one hand held the dazed Flames and Broken Silver in the other. Even though he knew he couldn’t win, the present Liola was no longer the submissive Silver Moon.

“Li, oh, Li, do you wish to oppose me?”

Gle stood proudly upright, towering over the crowd who had fallen to the ground. He then walked over slowly. Despite how leisurely he walked, every step he made filled the air with the scent of murder.

Gle smiled, and his gangster-like smile suddenly reminded Liola of a certain someone. Why had it never occurred to him that Kaiser’s smile was so similar to the Leader’s?

Liola contemplated, perhaps it was because he was so scared of the Leader, all his smiles and terrifying sneers looked like threats, so he did not dare to even remember the way he laughed. But now he could at least look at the Leader smiling… at least it was some progress. Liola laughed bitterly, knowing this progress wasn’t going to make him victorious.

“Bairui is dead, am I right?” Gle said straightforwardly and provokingly. “Do you really think a dead person can send you all back?”

“The first time Bairui used the magic circle, her body was destroyed. The second time, to send you back, she had to use her own soul, putting her into a long, deep sleep, only able to come out briefly to speak to you. The third time she sent you here, though she had some assistance, it still…” Gle chuckled, “Even I don’t dare to open the dimensional portal for a third time, how could a mere Bairui possibly sustain it?”

“Don’t speak of her like this!” Liola growled; he would not allow anyone to slander Anise.

Gle guessed with interest, “Anise must have been the combination of Bairui and the personality of the host. Because Bairui had opened the dimensional door, spending much of her energy to do so, her soul was practically half asleep. Thus, Anise must have had more of her host’s personality.”

Gle murmured, very satisfied with his own speculation, and considered it somewhat unmistaken.

Hearing Gle say so, for some reason, Liola felt a bit grateful. He had a strange feeling, and wondered why was Gle purposely telling him this? Could it be… he’s trying to tell him Anise was not an illusion?

“Thank you.”

Still impressed with himself for his undeniable intelligence, suddenly hearing a thank you shocked him. Gle raised his head to look at Liola with a face full with exaggerated skepticism, but knew well that other than himself and Liola, there was no one awake.

Gle suddenly burst into laughter and Liola was very confused. After laughing for a while, Gle assumed a dark and cold face and said, “Don’t think a simple ‘thank you’ would make me go soft on you. You are simply a toy to me. You are the Dragon Emperor’s son, I will never let you off easily!”

Liola’s face also darkened, and his grip on Broken Silver tightened.

“Bairui used the Dragon Cross Necklace to lock onto Yasha’s position. As long as I use the necklace to open the dimensional door, Yasha would be able to come back.”

Gle continued, explaining their deal. “She helps me lock onto Yasha, I help her open the dimensional door, that was our deal. But Li, I never said anything about allowing you to enter.”

Liola stared straight at Gle. “Then what do we have to do for you to allow us to enter?”

“You go fight with Kaiser and Daylight. If you win, I’ll let you in.” Gle revealed a malicious smile.

Liola stressed, “But you told them if I won, you will kill me.”

“Hmmph! I’m not a Knight, can’t I lie?” Gle laughed like a ruffian, then warned, “Hehe, I’m not that stupid! You’re not allowed to say anything to them. To guard against someone like you, I will seal your language ability. You will not be able to talk, write, and likewise, you won’t be able to understand what other people say or write. As for your telepathy with your Dragon, I’ve already sealed it.”

Liola was in shock, and Gle said a few last words, “Right, the duel wouldn’t be fun to watch if the sides aren’t even. I better prison you for now and give you no food nor water for ten days.”

No food would be fine, but no water for ten days would definitely kill someone. Before Liola had the chance to remind Gle that an ordinary person would be in danger due to the lack of water for a few days, his throat could no longer produce any sound.

* * *

Wanyuan looked at his apprentice as if he had an entirely new look. If he looked like a wonderful boy three months ago, then he was now like a keen-eyed man with an even more robust and buff body. Wanyuan sighed as if his own child had grown up.

Daylight smiled back honestly, and his keen-eyes curled a bit, as if he went back to being just a boy. He said earnestly, “Brother apprentice Grass, I will definitely do that.”

No matter how he had changed on the outside, his personality still remained the same… Wanyuan was irritated but also found it funny. Still, he felt happy overall: if Daylight’s personality really had changed, Wanyuan would have most likely felt rather disappointed.

Daylight walked to Flames and Baolilong. The two Dragons had been depressed ever since they have returned to Daylight ten days ago.

Daylight heard that they found Liola, but they both mysteriously fainted. When they had finally woken up, Liola was gone. The person who could make Liola leave these two Dragons behind could only be none other than Gle. Daylight had been praying since, hoping Liola was safe.

As soon as Flames heard they were leaving, it immediately transformed into a large Dragon. Baolilong also climbed up Flames’ head while desperately hurrying Daylight to get up. Baolilong really missed its papa.

“I think I better go with you.” Though Wanyuan didn’t want to get on Flames, his desire to help his apprentice was stronger. In case of emergencies, he thought, he could at least hold back Gle, to help the youngsters.

Daylight looked gratefully at his master, then jumped up on the Dragon’s back. Wanyuan also followed and got on Flames’ back. When Flames opened her wings and about to take flight…

“Wait! D-Daylight…” Long Yulie rushed up. No matter how terrified she was of the Dragon, she forced herself to stand next to Flames’ leg.

Daylight gestured Flames to wait a while. He jumped off Flames, and patiently awaited for Yulie to talk. However, when she saw everyone was looking at her, her face turned red and she couldn’t say what she wanted to say. But seeing Daylight was about to leave, if she didn’t say anything now, when would she have another chance?

“Cough, cough, Little Grass! Hurry and go help the God of Medicine find herbs. If you’re lazy again, he might spill some random crap on you.” Wanyuan yelled, and Little Grass hurried off with a shocked expression.

Wanyuan gave out another yell, “Crap! I forgot to take something. My memory is terrible, and I think I’m going to take ten minutes to find it.”

Having said that, Wanyuan hurriedly left, while thinking in his head, ‘What kind of era is this where the master has to find an excuse to leave so his apprentice could have a date.’

Yulie’s face was now entirely red. A woman’s shyness got the better of her, and she couldn’t say anything clearly.

Seeing Yulie like this, and remembering she had been with him for three months without going back to her faction nor going to look for Auyan Dri, Daylight, unlike Liola, was earnest rather than oblivious. He knew very well Yulie was fond of him.

Daylight said apologetically yet tactically, “Sorry, Yulie, we aren’t from the same world. I don’t know if I would go back one day…”

“Doesn’t matter!” Yulie had already known Daylight was from another world. After struggling with that fact, she had decided she would be with him for as long as possible, or even… following him back to his world.

Daylight had no idea Yulie was this determined. He was moved and apologetic at the same time, but he couldn’t possibly accept Yulie. He wasn’t an irresponsible man. If he did accept Yulie’s love now, he couldn’t leave her behind, but he couldn’t take her with him either.

Yulie was not Liola. He had no choice, plus when he left, nobody cared about him, so he left without any worries, and probably had never regretted it. But Yulie had so many people who cared about her, how could he possibly take her away?

“Just tell me, do you like me?” Yulie was very stubborn, just like Yandi.

Daylight never lied. He did indeed like Yulie, but instincts told him it wasn’t love. He simply felt the girl was nice. He frowned because he didn’t want to harm her, and said, “We are friends…”

Yulie laughed sadly, “As expected, you don’t like me. I knew about it a long time ago. You don’t care about me, and even when I purposely got close to you, your face doesn’t turn red at all, nor would you panic in the slightest. To you, I’m probably just an acquaintance.”

Seeing Yulie’s sad expression, Daylight felt rather sorry. He had no idea how to respond other than apologizing, “Sorry.”

“No! Don’t apologize. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Yulie wiped away her tear with her sleeve, and kissed Daylight’s face with a blush, “Farewell, my first love.” She then turned and ran. She didn’t want her loved one to see her like this.

Daylight didn’t like the feeling of making someone sad, but he had no choice.

“Such a good girl, a pity you don’t like her.” Wanyuan said on top of Flames’ back; Daylight had no idea when he got back.

“Like…” Daylight jumped back onto Flames’ back, gesturing for it take off now.

Daylight had been deep in thought on the way, and then he suddenly turned and asked, “Master! If I blush in front of a girl, and if she gets close to me, it makes me feel uneasy, does this mean I like her?”

Wanyuan almost slipped off the Dragon’s back. He had been asked many questions in his life, but never in the field of romance. Didn’t Daylight notice he was still alone?

Wanyuan sighed. Being a master nowadays was rather difficult, because he still had to occasionally be his apprentice’s love counselor.

“Something like that.” After all, Wanyuan had been in love before, so he could answer such a question.

“Oh!” After Daylight received his answer, he murmured, “So I like her after all…”

“What?” Wanyuan was all ears.

Daylight suddenly knocked himself in the head, and started blaming himself, “Why are you thinking about this now? You have to concentrate on beating Liola. Everything else could wait for later.”

Strange! Any said to blame Daylight should be said by him, the master. Wanyuan thought blankly. So his apprentice having too good of a morality was also a problem.

* * *

Kaiser had been inside the organization for the past three months while training his magic. This morning, he got up early, and meditated on his bed briefly. Then he spent a minute moonwalking to the spot where the duel would take place today, which also happened to be the place where he trained from day to day.

While crouching, Kaiser was deep in thought about the question he had been asking himself for the past three months. What exactly would Gle do to ensure Liola would fight with him and Daylight to the best of his abilities without holding back?

“Would he tell him the opposite instead?” Kaiser guessed, or perhaps Gle tol to Liola, if he lost, Gle would kill Kaiser and Daylight? If that was the case, Liola would want to win even if it would cost him his life. “Hmm, very plausible.”

But Kaiser knew, Gle would not kill him. Though Gle would never say this out loud, but he did indeed have some special feelings to Kaiser, who was his descendent.

But would Gle really kill Daylight? Kaiser didn’t think so. It was conceivable Gle might kill Liola, because he thought Liola was raised by him, so it wouldn’t hurt his conscious to kill him, but he wouldn’t kill Daylight easily, and this was what Kaiser’s instinct told him.

“Anyhow, Daylight and I have to win.”

Kaiser shook his head, how would he hint at Liola to make him go easy on them? Though he firmly believed he had indeed gotten stronger, and perhaps one day, believe he would be evenly match against Liola, but three months was far too short to make it happen.

Even if Daylight used the same kind of death-training as Liola (Or even worse? Nobody could live through it), one spent three months and another spent twenty years, who would be the winner of the two was obvious.

“Kaiser!”

Kaiser heard a yell, and raised his head. Flames’ giant body slowly landed on the training ground. As soon as it did, Daylight rushed up to Kaiser and examined him, “Are you okay?”

Kaiser looked back lazily, “Just fine, never been better. You? You look darker.”
Daylight smiled, “I’m fine too, also never been better.”
“I hope Liola isn’t like us, and never been better, otherwise we’re in trouble.”

Kaiser continued to hold his chin, frustrated at the thought of trying to hint at Liola without Gle realizing. Kaiser suddenly realized, in the corner of his eyes, Wanyuan had also followed Daylight. He jumped up and yelled, “We’re saved!”

Ignoring Daylight’s confusion, Kaiser went up to Wanyuan, and began to whisper in his ears, “Old man, when we duel, please help me divert Gle’s attention, and I will think of a way to give a cue to Liola… as in Silver Moon, so he could go easy and lose.”

Wanyuan hesitated, but then nodded. It’s not because he didn’t have faith in his apprentice, but to defeat Silver Moon based on three months of training was too difficult. Wanyuan also didn’t have much of a choice but agree, because he didn’t want to see his apprentice lose and cause Silver Moon’s death, then have a lifetime of regret and self-blame.

“Rock old man, how come I didn’t know you’re such good friends with my great-grandson?” Kaiser heard Gle’s playful and he immediately jumped away from Wanyuan.

“Liola, how did you end up like this?”
“Papa!”

Daylight and Baolilong both saw Liola standing behind Gle. His face looked sickly, and his already thin body looked even more frail now, and his clothes had spots of blood.

“Why did you beat him up, this duel wouldn’t be fair then!” Kaiser said loudly.

“I didn’t beat him.” Gle replied disapprovingly, “I just didn’t give him anything to eat or any water for ten days. Those wounds were because he was too thirsty, and he bit his own arm to drink his blood.”

“A-are you an idiot?” Kaiser opened his mouth, “A normal person would be near death from not drinking water for a day. You didn’t give him water for ten days, he would’ve already died if he didn’t drink his own blood!”

[T/N: Drinking one’s own blood would probably kill them faster when there’s no source of water. But this is fiction.]

“Hmm?! Really? I didn’t know.” Gle scratched his face. Whatever, it wasn’t the first time he did something wrong.

Liola had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. To him, everything Kaiser was saying was no different than random screams. Nevertheless, judging from their worried and caring expressions, Liola knew what they were saying. He smiled lightly, wanting to reduce his companions’ worries.

“Then do you guys want to give him some water?” Gle gestured purposely and asked.

“Bullsh—! Of course… not.” Kaiser held his fist tight, trying to control his eyes to look away from Liola’s frail face and chapped lips.

“Kaiser…” Daylight yelled hesitantly. Though it’s not like he didn’t understand why Kaiser refused to give him water, he still felt guilty.

Gle leisurely used magic, and two wooden chairs erupted from the ground. He then beckoned at Wanyuan, “Sit! Rock old man, long time no see.”

Wanyuan sighed, and sat on the chair. He tried to persuade him, “Why must you put them in such a difficult position? One of them is your apprentice, and the other is your great-grandson.”

Gle raised his eyebrows, and glanced at Wanyuan, “My family, I’ll do whatever I want…”

Kaiser saw Wanyuan was talking to Gle, he immediately used this opportunity, and lipped some words without saying it out loud to Liola: “Go easy! Let us win, otherwise Gle will kill you. Don’t worry about us, he won’t kill us, trust me.”

Liola frowned. He didn’t not understand what Kaiser was trying to do with his lips. All of his language capabilities were completely sealed.

Kaiser thought Liola was hesitating, so he repeated again and again. Liola raised his head, and then shook it. A painful look was on his face, but he couldn’t utter a single syllable. He couldn’t explain to Kaiser Gle had duped both him and Daylight.

“Hey! Let’s get on with the match.” Gle said lazily, “Daylight, Kaiser, and Flames on one team, Li on the other by himself. Baolilong, you choose which side you want to be. The rule is, whichever side faints for more than three minutes loses. Daylight’s team will only lose if all three are knocked out, and if Li gets knocked out, then he loses!”

Kaiser asked while acting as if he were oblivious, “As long as we win, it doesn’t matter what method we use, right?”

“Right!” Gle answered lazily, “Any other questions? Even if you do, I’m not going to answer. The match begins now!”

This was too sudden, and both sides stood still. Baolilong wanted to run to Liola, but Kaiser grabbed it. Baolilong desperately struggled, but Kaiser yelled loudly, “Stop causing troubles! Do you want to go help your dad to his death?”

Water filled Baolilong’s large eyes. It remembered it can’t help papa. If papa won, he would die!

Daylight looked Kaiser, waiting for him to make the move first. Kaiser did not attack, and instead said loudly, “Since we can use whatever method we want, then I could simply persuade him to surrender! This shouldn’t violate the rules!”

Daylight and others looked at Kaiser, both surprised and happy. They didn’t think Kaiser had this move up his sleeve. Kaiser glanced at Gle, saw him still acting naturally, and he even had a smirk on his face. Kaiser suddenly had a terrible feeling in his heart.

“Hey! Liola, don’t listen to Gle, they won’t kill us. The only person he wants to kill is you. If you win, he will kill you.” Kaiser tried to yell loudly.

Liola had no reactions whatsoever, and instead slowly took out Broken Silver from his boot.

Kaiser took a few steps back, and asked both shockingly and skeptically, “Liola? Are you being controlled?”

Liola smiled bitterly, and this smile abated Kaiser’s worries. Judging from his expressions, he didn’t look like he was being controlled. He flashed, and Liola’s figure suddenly disappeared. Kaiser only saw a flash of silver, and didn’t even have time to unsheath his gun…

“Papa! No!”

Baolilong rushed up, and stood in front of Kaiser. Broken Silver, however, didn’t stop. It landed heavily on Baolilong’s neck, and then a kick caused Baolilong’s little body to fly away like a broken kite. It landed on the ground far away, and Baolilong didn’t move at all.

Liola’s face was as cold as ice. His figure flashed again, and a crisp clashing of weapons echoed. Kaiser took a closer look, and he saw Daylight had already appeared in front of him, using his pike to block Broken Silver.

“Damn! You bastard!” Seeing what was happening, Kaiser took out his giant gun.

For the first time, the three companions weapons — a barrel, a pike, and Broken Silver — pointed at one another, unwillingly, but without a choice.

Chapter 8 : Story of the Young Devil

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and StellarAshes.

Aklan’s Crazy Four

“GLE!”

A silver-haired, blue-eyed, handsome lad sat leisurely on a branch. His eyes were half open, not knowing if he was awake or asleep. He was wavering about on the branch, making an onlooker fear he would fall off. But as soon as he heard the yell, he elegantly flipped around, and laid flat on the branch on his stomach, while lazily looking down at the people below.

“What?”

Three people stood below him, two males and a female, all wearing Magician robes. One of the guys looked older, seemingly more than twenty-five years of age, with a bearded face. The other looked more proper and elegant, much like a scholar, and he looked around twenty years of age.

The girl’s face was delicate and clean, even if her beauty wasn’t considered stunning, especially since her smile was bright, and very pleasing to the eyes. Nevertheless, she grabbed a rock from the ground without any reserve, and without saying a word, she threw the rock towards Gle on the tree branch.

She yelled while laughing, “Get down from there! Didn’t we agree to go prank the School of Knights?”

As soon as he heard the word “prank”, Gle’s spirit lifted, especially when the target was the School of Knights whom he never got along with. He yelled excitedly, “No problem! I’ll get down immediately.”

With another flip, Gle dexterously jumped down from a few meters above the ground; his skilful movements were unbefitting of a frail Magician. After jumping to his three companions, Gle looked at the proper man strangely and asked, “Qiusi? What a surprise; you plan on playing with us?”

Qiusi revealed a warm smile. In the eyes of a bystander, this smile could make them drop any guard they might have for him, but in front of his companions, his smile was comparable to the devil’s.

Qiusi raised the pile of paper in his hand and laughed mysteriously, “I’m just helping the teacher deliver the homework to the three of you class-skipping students, don’t misunderstand me; I am an excellent student.”

Having said that, he put the pile of paper in Gle’s hands, then left without pausing, or saying anything else. In the eyes of an bystander, he didn’t even look like he was friends with the other three.

“Joykill!” Gle looked at Qiusi’s back, and grunted.

“Don’t be like that! Qiusi doesn’t have a choice. He belongs to a rather famous family in the Aklan Republic. Last time, his father warned him, and told him to stop being acquaintance with us bad students.” The bearded man smiled as he explained.

“Barbalis, aren’t you in the same situation? You’re in the most prestigious family for Magicians in Aklan Republic. How come your father didn’t come to warn you?” Gle rolled his eyes, thinking the man looked more like a delinquent artist than a Magician.

Barbalis disagreed, “And because I come from a family of Magicians, you have no idea how much my old man wants me to be friends with you. He often sighed you’re not a woman, or I’m not a woman; otherwise, we could marry each other, and he could add the ‘one in a million Magician genius’ into the family, then do all sorts of Magic experiments with you.”

Gle smiled as he said, “I’d rather die than to marry you” as he threw a small fireball. Barbalis also put on a whole “I’m so scared” comical face as he dodged the fireball with ease.

“Okay! Stop fooling around!” Susanna, the only woman in the group, yelled, and the two men obediently put away their playful expressions while staring at her with wide round eyes.

She rolled her eyes and said anxiously, “Quick! Quick! What’s Qiusi’s plan this time? I can’t wait to put those pretentious Knight in their place.”

It was the men’s turn to roll their eyes. The entire academy thought the Crazy Four was led by the genius Magician Gle; Barbalis joined in because he admired Gle’s magic, so he followed him around. As for Qiusi, he was a good student who was forced to join after being threatened. Lastly, they thought Susanna had a crush on Gle, and because of it, she follows them around to do bad things.

However, it could not be any further from the truth!

Because Susanna’s speciality was healing magic rather than combat magic, she learnt fist-fighting. A favorite pastime of hers was to go face-to-face against Knights. Many of the Knights in the School had tasted her fists. Any Knights who showed the slightest hint of arrogance had all uncoincidentally received a “shocking education” from Susanna, then embarrassingly asked their Holy Knight classmates for a heal.

Barbalis was curious, “Huh? We’re going to prank Lancelot this time? I don’t think he messed with us?”

Susanna held a tight fist, and yelled into the sky, “I hate Lancelot the most~!”

The two men had already covered their ears the moment she made a fist. Gle also began to count, one, two… fifteen, and then he murmured, “Almost there, Susanna’s lung capacity is about twenty seconds.” He then put down his hands.

Sure enough, Susanna stopped and tried to catch her breath, and as a result, she was no longer torturing anyone’s ears.

Barbalis thought it was strange, “Why do you hate him so much? Don’t people call him the perfect Knight? Don’t tell me he discriminated you?”

“He didn’t!”

Gle then asked, “Did he not duel with you because you’re a woman?”

“He did duel with me seriously, and he even used a formal Knight’s challenge.” Susanna said with a pouted face.

Barbalis continued to investigate the truth, “Is he too ugly and the sight of him polluted your eyes, so you want to beat him up and make him even more ugly?”

“He’s super handsome! It pains me to even hit his face.”

“Then what do you hate about him, exactly?” The two men asked in unison.

Susanna said righteously, “He’s a strong and a gentleman who conducts himself perfectly, and he’s so incredibly handsome. A man like him is going to break countless women’s hearts! So I have to use this opportunity to disfigure his face, and save my fellow women from the heartbreaker Lancelot!”

Aklan’s Crazy Four Confidential Files

ID

Susanna

Position

General

Professional Capability

Healing Magician

Non-Professional Capability

Boxing

Title

Violent Female Invincible Fist

Hobbies

Helping handsome guys disfigure their faces.

Gle couldn’t help but touched his own face. He had heard rumors that, in the ranking of the most handsome males in the Academy, he was third on the list. The list of “most-hated” people Susanna would yell into the sky, might one day be “accidentally” yelled out loud…

“Open Qiusi’s plan, quickly.” Susanna hurried anxiously.

Gle took up the pile of paper, and the title on the first page was, ‘The higher they fly, the harder they fall!”

Operation “Pancake on the Ground” Outline

According to internal information from the Aklan Republic (My dad said so), the Dragon Emperor will, in the latter half of the year, visit Aklan Republic. It’s very plausible he would visit the Aklan Academy School of Knights, because it’s on the way, for a speech or something. If an outstanding Knight appear there, he would definitely receive praise from the Dragon Emperor.

Step 1
Let the target accomplish something big, enough for the Dragon Emperor to appear and praise him. Possibly go cause some ruckus in Yaron plains, scare the Sub-Dragons. As long as it doesn’t become a large problem, the Republic may very well ask the Academy to send a few students to investigate. Then the evil Magician and evil Knight appear (starring Barbalis and Gle), acting as if they’re going to harm everyone in the world, then finally pretend they were defeated, so the target accomplish the first big thing.

Step 2
At the climax of target’s recognition ceremony, have a woman two trimesters into her pregnancy (starring Susanna) appear and accuse the target of rape, threats, fraud, playing around with women then abandoning them, and as many of the other accusations as you could think of.

Step 3
Have two people (starring Gle and Barbalis) appear and accuse the mission was not actually accomplished by the target. As long as you specify the evil Magician’s Magic, then put on a show for them, no one would support the accused target. By then, target’s reputation would be completely ruined, and the “pancake on the ground” plan would have succeeded. Hahaha!

Aklan’s Crazy Four Confidential Files

ID

Qiusi

Position

Chief of Advisor

Professional Capability

Ancestral Invincible Protective Shield

Non-Professional Capability

Dissolving other people’s guard and a warm smile.

Title

Behind-the-scene Mysterious Mastermind

Hobbies

Framing Others

“Good! Good plan!” Susanna’s eyes shone, not caring she had to play a pregnant woman and accuse someone of playing with women then abandoning them.

The smile on Gle’s face was becoming larger and larger, “I have a feeling, we will definitely get expelled this time!”

“Doesn’t matter!” Barbalis laughed suggestively, “My father will welcome you to live in my house for a long time.”

On the other side of the Academy, the perfect Knight Lancelot was training his sword skills earnestly, unaware of the existence of the “Pancake” plan in the world, and its target being him.

It was a plan just like others of Qiusi’s: they always took insane amount of effort and time. Gle and Barbalis spent a full three months trying to set up the Yaron plains.

They also had to pay attention so it would have an effect on the world, but not too severe, so Qiusi could hint at his father, who was the advisor to the Prime Minister, to give the mission to the Knight students. He also mentioned casually of there was a very powerful Holy Knight, etcetera.

After three months, the mission was eventually given to Lancelot, and operation “Pancake on the Ground” had formally started.

* * *

Barbalis and Gle took up the acting roles due to their ability to use teleport to move around quickly. One impersonated an evil Magician, and the other an evil Knight.

When Lancelot kept his team of Knights afar and came in alone on his unicorn to scout, the two suddenly jumped out. Barbalis first used a ward to trap him, then Gle took out a sword to challenge him.

Every time they would have a prank and they needed some sort of professional skills, Gle would suddenly study enthusiastically. This time, he went undercover in the School of Knights for three months, so he could learn the Knight’s sword skills and aura. He awaited this duel with much anticipation.

“What?” Gle held his sword adeptly, while wearing a full suit of black armor. It was near impossible to tell he was actually an Magician.

“We have to lose, you remember that, right? Please don’t win!”

Barbalis was very worried. Despite Lancelot being the strongest Knight in the Academy, but nobody knew how strong Gle’s immeasurable strength truly was; only known thing about him was he never had a record of losing in anything, and even the instructors and principal of the Academy didn’t dare to challenge him.

“Shut up!”

With a sword in Gle’s hand, and his opponent standing imposingly on the other side, they both felt, at the same time, neither of their opponent was weak. Gle could sense in his opponent’s eye that Lancelot was a rare and true Knight. He had already completely forgotten about the “Pancake” plan by now, and all he wanted was to duel to his heart’s content without any inhibitions.

The only thing one could see was the white and black figures clashing again and again in close combat, and neither the white aura nor the blue aura seemed to have an advantage over the other. A duel between a comprehensive prodigy and a Knight prodigy began. No one except perhaps Barbalis, who was a bystander in all this, knew who eventually won.

‘It was too fun of a fight!’

Finally, the “Pancake” plan failed completely, or rather, Susanna yelled at Gle so much that he became the “Pancake”. Even Qiusi would often look at Gle with a laugh, because he became the only victim of the whole operation.

Lancelot, on the other hand, was visited by the Dragon Emperor himself, and given him the title “Paladin”. In the following hundreds of years, his title of Paladin had became so well known, it matched the level of the Black Knight Blood Wolf, but all these happened much later.

* * *

“Damn! That was really unlucky.” Gle was hanging on the tree branch, while looking at Knights from afar, and the Dragon Emperor dressed in purple.

Barbalis rolled his eyes, and blamed him mercilessly, “You caused it yourself!”

Gle heard, but he didn’t care. Instead, he pouted. As much as he loved pranks, he loved dueling more, regardless of the types of duels. A duel without inhibition was as fun to him as five interesting pranks.

“Forget it! The prank was bound to fail from the start.”

Barbalis murmured. As usual, their framing pranks never succeeded, and they were the only victims from them. Nevertheless, the Four never got tired of them.

“AHH!” Gle suddenly yelled.

Barbalis was in shock, and asked hurriedly, “What? What?”

“Oh! God, someone please tell me, the woman with boxing gloves challenging the Dragon Emperor for a duel is not Susanna.” Gle covered his face, not wanting to look in that direction.

Barbalis immediately turned his head, and then dropped his jaw, “That crazy woman!”

In the distance, a woman with leathered clothes had metallic boxing gloves on both of her hands was pointing the Dragon Emperor in one hand, and had her other hand on her waist. The Aklan principal next to her looked like he could faint at any moment.

“I’ll go help!”

Gle examined the situation; the Dragon Emperor smiled graciously, as if he would actually accept Susanna’s request for a duel. So as much as Gle loved duel, how could he not go participate? Gle disappeared without a trace, then appeared right next to Susanna.

“Hey! Don’t win…” Barbalis reminded Gle as usual, but before he even finished, Gle was gone.

Barbalis looked into the sky and sighed, “What a joke! What would happen if they beat the Dragon Emperor in front of the whole Academy… but, it must be fun to watch!” Barbalis then disappeared too, to go watch the show.

Aklan’s Crazy Four Confidential Files

ID

Barbalis

Position

Bystander

Professional Capability

Attack Magic

Non-Professional Capability

Stealth Magic

Title

Peeping Tom

Hobbies

Watching interesting happenings.

* * *

Meeting

A seemingly malicious man with black messed up hair was humming as he walked unsteadily. A wine bottle was in his right hand, and judging from his red face, he was at least half drunk.

If one paid more attention, they would notice the man actually wore formal Knight uniform, specifically a black Knight’s uniform. However, it was riddled with holes and covered in patches, and therefore looked more like something a beggar would wear more than a Knight’s uniform. Such a fallen Knight was rare to see, especially since he was walking along the roads next to the most famous Academy in the Aklan Continent, Aklan Academy. This was a place where, if their sign fell off, it would have been pulverized by ten Auras and eight Magic spells before it landed.

The clean and tidy crowd of Knights glanced this man at an angle, with anger on their faces. When the Magicians’ ridicule laughters could be heard, the dozen or so of Red and Blue Knights decided they couldn’t let this unclean Knight pass. They proudly held the sword in their hands, and surrounded the man with black hair.

“Only Knights can wear Knight uniform.” A Blue Knight among them showed an arrogant look; he could never believe the homeless man in front of him could be a Knight.

The black-haired man showed a silly smile. He then pushed his hair aside, then pointed the Knight’s badge on his chest.

The Blue Knight looked at this badge and, as much as he didn’t want to admit, thought this man may actually be a Knight, unless he somehow managed to rob a badge from a Knight? But he still wouldn’t let this homeless Knight go, and instead he was even more infuriated. If the man in front of him was an impostor Knight, then they should teach him a lesson and declare to everyone homeless nomads could never be Knights.

“I challenge you to a duel!” The Blue Knight yelled imposingly. He was determined to teach this man a lesson about never making Knights look bad.

At this time, the man finally fully opened his half-closed eyes. The bright eyes glanced at the Blue Knight challenging him, and said lazily, “Name, academy, and rank?”

Blue Knight hesitated, then remembered these things must be said in a formal duel. He only wanted to teach this man a lesson, so he didn’t think about it too much. Being embarrassed he had forgotten a duel’s formalities, the Blue Knight replied angrily, “I am a Blue Knight from the School of Knights, in Aklan Academy, Milan.”

A light shone in the black-haired man. His eyes did not look at Milan; instead, he tilted his head, and his eyes landed on another Blue Knight next to him, one with long, brown hair, and his eyes were as blue as the sky.

Everyone thought it was strange, and they looked in the direction the black-haired man gazed. They were shocked and felt uneasy, because the person stood next to them, who had been quiet but his eyes had been fixed on them, was the most powerful, perfect Knight in the Aklan School of Knights — Lancelot. The Knights were secretly glad they had not attacked, and the homeless man was really a Knight. If Lancelot saw them attack an ordinary man, no good could possibly come from it.

Lancelot was looking at the homeless man’s clothes. The black Knight uniform was rather messy, and even the lining looked discolored, but one could still vaguely distinguish its color.

Seeing Lancelot staring at the homeless man’s uniform, the Blue Knight who challenged him remembered, he could determine his rank by looking at the color. He looked towards the dirty uniform, and realized the lining was… “Silver! Silver Knight? How is that possible?!” Milan was in shock.

Everyone was shocked, and even the homeless man seemed to be startled by Milan’s yell. He then murmured, “So what if I’m a Silver Knight. There are plenty of Silver Knights on Dragon Continent. I’ve already graduated from the Academy for years, I can’t believe a little runt who hadn’t graduated would dare challenge me.”

Milan heard the homeless man’s murmur, and he was so scared that his face changed colors. He couldn’t have imagined the person in front of him was a Silver Knight. Had he known earlier, he wouldn’t dare to challenge a Silver Knight even if his life depended on it.

The homeless man said casually, “I am Blood Wolf, Knight aligned with Darkness, people call me the Dark Knight. My rank is Silver, and I graduated a long time ago so I don’t have a school to tell you. I am now working under the third Prince of the Dragon Empire. Right, if you want to know, look at your 3:30 direction. The silver-haired man flirting with the girl would be the third Prince, and he’s here with his father.”

Everyone looked in the direct Blood Wolf stated. Sure enough, there was a silver-haired man there, standing pitifully while covering half of his face with his hand, while the woman next to him was looking angrily at him.

Cappuccino turned around and said as if he had been wronged, “All I did was say I was a Prince, and she slapped me.”

Blood Wolf shrugged, “Probably because the Prince in reality is far too different than the ideal Prince Charming, so when she got mad, she probably slapped you to vent her anger.”

He then murmured, ‘Every time when I tell people I work under you, and then see what you’re doing, even I want to slap you!’

While these two were going back and forth, the dozen of Knights who provoked him had already turned paled. Just a Silver Knight was more than they could handle, and now there was even a Prince. Now they don’t even know how they’re going to die.

Lancelot looked curiously at Blood Wolf, then walked out of the crowd. Everyone was surprised, because Lancelot’s body was covered in wounds. His white uniform had many holes, and there were spots of blood throughout. Many of his wounds were still bleeding.

Blood Wolf hesitated then asked, “Oh! Did you just finish a fight?”

Lancelot nodded, and a smile appeared on his face. Although he had no idea why he fought, but it was still a fight he very much enjoyed, especially since there was a strange Knight with a blue aura…

“AHH! No fair! I want to fight too.” Blood Wolf yelled loudly while jumping around, as if he desperately wanted a fight.

Cappuccino slowly walked over. As he examined Lancelot, whose age appeared to be near his own, he said to Blood Wolf, “Stop being shameless! He looks ten years younger than you, isn’t challenging him to a duel a bit too shameless, even for you?”

“I didn’t challenge him? All I’m doing is telling him to challenge me.” Blood Wolf continued to declare shamelessly.

“Such a bad Knight, no wonder I’m the only who’d have you.” Cappuccino knocked his own head helplessly.

“Hmmph, you’re such a bad Prince, no wonder I’m the only one working under you.” Blood Wolf responded without backing down.

The two of them actually began to argue right then and there, and they both were trying to dig up old wounds, such as “You spent more time in the academy flirting with girls than training with your sword”, or “You hid a dozen bottles of strong wine under your bed”, etc…

“Haha, are you two really a Prince and his Knight?”

A few loud sounds of laughter could be heard. Both of them curiously looked in the direction of the laugh, and saw a few Magicians standing there. None of them looked old, and the person standing in the front, was a young Magician with a hooligan smile.

“Who are you?” Blood Wolf asked without much interest. He hated fighting with Magicians, because it was too boring for him. He enjoyed the clashing of swords between Knights far more. Since these people couldn’t be challengers in a duel for him, he quickly lost interest.

“Gle.”

The young man said straightforwardly. As soon as the crowd heard this name, though, they took a deep breath, and began to scream. Some of them even began to take a few steps back, then turned around and ran as fast as they could.

“Aklan Crazy Four?”
“My God! It’s the Magician prodigy, Gle.”

Before long, the place was almost empty, leaving behind only Lancelot, Cappuccino, Blood Wolf, and the group people called the Crazy Four, even though there were only three of them there. Blood Wolf stared blankly, then asked, “Are you guys… really that scary?”

“Bombing the School of Knights three times,” Lancelot, who had remained quiet before now, had finally spoken, with a solemn anger in his eyes.

“Beating countless innocent Knights,” He took another step towards Gle.

“Being indecent to female Knights,” He put his right hand on his sword.

Gle finally opened his mouth to refute, “Hey! That one I deny. She was indecent to me first. I said I was going to scream, but because she didn’t want to be embarrassed, she screamed first. I’m the victim! Victim! Do you understand?!”

“Great… you could be a victim.” Cappuccino looked like he was envious.

Lancelot, however, ignored Gle’s explanation. He unsheathed his sword, and didn’t seem to care his body was covered in wounds and there were three people on the opposing side. To him, no matter at what time or what place, righteousness must be maintained.

“… And causing troubles at Yaron Plains.”

Gle heard and was shocked. He said unconsciously, “How did you know?”

Lancelot said calmly, “Smile.”

Hearing what Lancelot said, Gle touched his face reflexively. He didn’t expect him to recognize him from the smile. When he was in Yaron Plains, he was wearing half a mask. Did he underestimate Lancelot? He thought Lancelot was just old-fashioned Knight with a bit of strength.

He had no idea his two companions were glaring at him. Gle’s hooligan smile was, in fact, quite unique, so it was not strange to them that Lancelot recognized it.

“Are you going to duel?” Blood Wolf’s face was covered with excitement, “How about a 3v3 duel? No no, you guys are too young. How about this: aren’t you guys the Crazy Four? Go find your fourth, and we can have a 3v4, how’s that?”

“Good! Good!”

Gle also seemed excited, and Susanna, who feared there might not be a battle, was already putting on her boxing gloves. Barbalis had no choice but sigh and trying to think of a way to contact Qiusi, thinking he might come with a God-knows-what funny-looking mask.

When the three Knights and four Magicians competed against one another without seeing each other as enemies, their faces were filled with exciting smiles because they could fight with such powerful opponents. And after they finished, all seven of them fell to the ground, laughing, because this fight had got them all acquainted.

But, no one had imagined, many years later, the fight became a real fight to the death, and the place they would compete on was the entire world…

* * *

Master and Apprentice, or…?

“Barbalis!” Gle barged into the dorm like a tornado, interrupting Barbalis’ meditation in the process.

Barbalis helplessly ended his meditation, then complained, “Hey! Could you please let me meditate? I’m not a super genius like you, I still need to meditate.”

“Shut up! Tell me quick, what do pets eat?”

Barbalis looked curiously at Gle, and noticed he was holding a bag made of cloth in his hand. It was about the size of a dog? Barbalis thought to himself. Although technically speaking they weren’t allowed to have pets in the Academy dormitory, but the Crazy Four had already broken just about every other Academy rule, bombed the School of Knight twice, and half destroyed their own School twice, and once completely.

So what does it matter if they had a pet? If they would raise the pet obediently instead of causing troubles, the principal might even come and give a prize to the pet.

“Give it some leftovers. Or if it’s too young, feed it milk.”

Barbalis answered carelessly. He knew Gle’s personality was on the extremes: he’d either keep at something at the very end, or lose interest immediately. He planned to find out which of these attitudes Gle had towards the pet before he acted on it. Otherwise, if he helped to take care of the pet for a few days, then Gle throw it away, wouldn’t it be a waste of his time?

“Milk, okay, I’ll go buy milk.” Gle put the bag on the bed, then left much like how he came in.

Barbalis sighed. He feared Gle would be back soon, so he didn’t plan to continue his meditation. He began to organize his magic notes.

While organizing, he heard a small cry. Barbalis glanced at the cloth bag; could it be a kitten? It was possible; Barbalis didn’t seem to care. In any case, before Gle was certain he was going to raise this pet, Barbalis wasn’t going to give it any attention.

Before long, Gle came in like the wind again. He held a milk bottle in his hand, then grabbed the bag, and put the bottle up to the bag.

Barbalis squinted at Gle, and reminded him, “Put it in a plate, and let it lick it.”

Gle paused, and said “Oh”. He then actually poured the milk into a plate, then put the bag down in front of the plate. The crying sound was getting louder and louder; the baby-like crying sound gave Barbalis the goose bumps.

“He’s not licking.” Gle frowned.
“How can that be?”

Barbalis finally stood up, and walked towards Gle. He looked towards the cloth bag, and finally saw what kind of “pet” was inside. He froze completely, and his eyes didn’t move until Gle prodded him. He said with a stutter, “T-this is a pet?!”

“Yup! Cute, ain’t it?” Gle said as if it were natural.

Indeed it was cute. Chubby pink face, soft golden hair, and large eyes. Everyone would love such a cute… baby, and it was 100% human!

“I’m still thinking about a name.” Gle looked a bit a troubled. This was the first time he was trying to come up with a name.

“You’re really going to raise him?” Barbalis’ face darkened. How old was Gle? He’s going to raise a child at 18? He was actually praying Gle would throw him away after playing with it for a while, so he could put this child in an orphanage.

“Yup! He even knows how to call my name.” Gle snickered, while frequently poking the baby’s white and chubby cheeks.

“Call your name?” Barbalis was very skeptical. Can a baby this young even talk?

“Yes! Listen.”

Gle used his finger to tickle the baby’s armpit. The infant laughed as it made the sound of “Gle, Gle.”

“…”

“Fun, isn’t it? I’ve decided to raise him.” Gle said casually, as if he were declaring he’s adopting a dog.

“Seriously?” Barbalis asked solemnly. He knew, if Gle was serious, no one could change his mind.

“Seriously. I will raise him to be the strongest Magician. Of course, just not as strong as me.”

“Name?” Barbalis said the only response he could think of.

Gle thought seriously for a moment, then asked with a smile, “Which do you think is better, Mizerui or Silver Moon?”

“What the heck is in your head? There’s nothing common between these two names.” Barbalis touched the back of his head, “Call him Mizerui. He has golden hair, not silver. It would be strange to call him Silver Moon.”

Gle nodded, and raised the child high up in the air as he laughed, “Mizerui! Be good. Grow up quickly, so I can do some experiments.”

‘Experiments…?’ Barbalis suddenly realized, he had no courage to ask Gle what kind of experiment it was. Perhaps, in time, he might, out of the kindness of his heart, steal Mizerui and take him to an orphanage.

Of course, eventually the kindness of his heart still lost to Gle’s powerful magic and unusual temper. Because of such, the world had one more dangerous rank-X wanted criminal.

‘Anyone Gle raises with his own hands, as long as they’re alive, will become peerless masters.’ Barbalis whispered to himself.

(Warning: extremely dangerous, do not try at home, mortality rate approximately 99.8%)

Manhua Side Story: Dragon Whelp

This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and StellarAshes. Special thanks to Cave Scanlation for providing the raw document.

‘Ahh…’

He walked casually. The mountain roads were difficult to cross, but for this person, the rough roads was not at all a problem. Though he wore a robe, it only went down to about his thighs, and underneath the robe, he wore leathered clothes, which was suitable for moving around. Nevertheless, the combination of two created a sense of disharmony.

His footsteps were lithe, but not fast. In fact, he was walking at such a leisure pace that one could mistake him for walking in his own backyard after a meal. Considering his surrounding was pitch-dark and the ground was covered with mud, the disharmony between his posture and the background was as strange as his choices for clothing.

“Where are you exactly? This crying sound sounds like a child… Hehe, don’t cry too loudly. If the wolves hear you before me, you could very well turn into a piece of tender meat for them.”

However terrifying what he said sounded, his posture remain relaxed, as if he was in no hurry to find the source of the cries.

A wolf’s howl came from afar, in the same direction as the cries he heard. This realization made him stop. Was he already too late? Should he even bother going?

He thought about it briefly. He decided that, since he had already made it all the way here, it would be a waste of time if he didn’t go check it out, even if all that remained when he gets there was a pile of blood. After all, he hadn’t had wolf meat in a long time. As for whether the wolves had just eaten a human — it would be fine as long as he didn’t eat the wolves organs.

A pile of blood, a pile of bones and flesh, or a bloodied child… he had thought of every possible terrifying scene, but he didn’t seem to care. He even began to bet against himself on which scenario it would be… except it was none of them.

A small figure sat on top of a large rock. The pack of wolves were circling the rock, and their numbers were no less than fifty. Not only did they not pounce and tear the child apart, they were lying still on the ground, as peasants would before their king. Even the alpha wolf of the pack, who looked like the king of the pack, remained upright and walked slowly towards the figure.

Having thought he had seen everything, the sight of all this still made him pause. He was no longer in a hurry to go up, but instead, he was now interested in seeing if this child could survive in the claws of the alpha wolf. The alpha wolf looked like it was on guard. His movements were careful yet majestic. He looked more like a human than a wolf, which meant he had likely ascended, and was no longer than an ordinary wolf.

[T/N: Traditional Chinese beliefs usually included sentience in every creature. They often believed when an animal or other living creatures — not humans — who have lived and “trained” themselves enough, would become immortalized and gain sentience, as well as the ability to morph into human. So this alpha wolf look liked it probably has reached that stage, due to its intelligence and posture.]

He took a few steps closer, ascertaining the small figure was indeed a child. Judging by the figure, the child looked around five years of age. Even though most of the child was covered by a cloth, but he trusted his ability to judge age. After all, he had took in quite a number of infants, so he was no stranger to babies.

The alpha wolf walked up to the child; its size was considerably larger than the other wolves. The child looked nothing more than a few rubbles next to its feet. As it walked around the child, it kept sniffing at the child. He had no idea why the wolf seemed worried. Such a small infant obviously had no ability whatsoever to protect itself.

The situation was rather special. The alpha wolf seemed to fear the child slightly, but the naive child was not scared of anything. The child reached out his hand to touch the fur on the wolf, as if he was feeling cold. As soon as he realized the warmth of the wolf, he leaned his whole body against the wolf.

The alpha wolf became terrified and jumped a few steps back, but the child crawled or rushed to catch up the wolf.

Strange, the child did not seem to know how to walk. The man observing from the sidelines was confounded. For a normal person, at the age of five, one could already run securely, but this one look like he was having trouble just standing up. Instead, it was crawling towards the Wolf’s limbs. Could the child be younger than he imagined?

The wolf lowered its head, and prodded the child with its nose. The child actually reached out its hand to try to grab ahold of the wolf’s head. But because he was too weak, he could not hold onto it. He then completely leaned his entire body against the wolf’s limb, trying to absorb as much warmth as possible from the wolf.

The wolf lowered its head and licked the child. It hesitated briefly, but then opened its mouth towards the child.

Contrary to expectations, the child did not cry, because he was picked up by the wolf like an animal would for its young. Not only did he not feel any pain, he felt the warmth from the mouth of the wolf. Although the wolf’s mouth was filled with the stench of blood, to a child who had spent most of the night in the cold, warmth was far more important.

The alpha wolf seemed to have no plans to harm the child. He held the child with his mouth, and turned to leave. The surrounding wolves got up, and followed the wolf king, as if they were a small army following their emperor.

But before he went long, the alpha wolf suddenly widened its eyes. He threw the child to the side, and carefully examined the person appearing in front of them, while emitting a low, warning growl.

The person was wearing robes and leathered clothes. His hands were crossed behind him, and he was standing there leisurely, which was completely unlike an attitude a normal person would have in front of a pack of wolves.

The side who appeared to be worried was actually the pack of wolves. Despite its growl, the alpha wolf did not rush up, but took a few steps back instead. The other wolves did not have the alpha wolf’s keen senses, but they acted as if they could sense something from the attitude of their leader; they also backed up.

The man said as he smiled, “I sensed a magic ripple in the middle of the night. And the only thing I found when I investigated was a five year old child alone on a rock, in a place filled with Bandits, then he was surrounded by a pack of wolves. The wolves didn’t want to harm the child, and by the looks of it, the wolves seemed to be fond of this little child. Even though the wolf king may have already gained sentience, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t want to eat meat…”

He touched his chin, as if he was thinking “Though this whole thing seems rather strange, but ever since I’ve had some conflicts with the people here and formed the organization, the days had been boring. I’ve finally ran into something interesting after all this time… Okay, even if this is a trap, I will treat it as a game!”

He walked up slowly, and the alpha wolf continued to growl. Every three steps the man took, the wolf took one back as if it was hesitating. Its postures and expressions looked no different than those of a person.

“It really has obtained sentience.” The man laughed wryly; having seen much in his life, a wolf with sentience wasn’t anything of interest to him.

He pointed at the child, and commanded arrogantly, “I want that thing, piss off!”

Facing such arrogant attitude, the alpha wolf gave out a quiet cry; it had gotten angry.

As soon as their king was angered, the wolf pack began to grimace as well. Their claws were digging through the ground, preparing to charge up to this man at anytime to tear him into pieces!

The man smiled. There was still no trace of fear in his expression, but was filled with interest instead, as if he was playing with his own puppy.

Unbelievably, as much as the alpha wolf seemed to be unwilling, it continued to backup. It looked at the child next to its feet with longing; the child was holding tightly to his limb, so it had no choice but lightly kicked the child away from it. The child flew off, and rolled a few times on the ground, stopping halfway between the wolves and the man.

The child looked at the alpha wolf with confusion, and he tried to slowly climb towards the wolf, but before he made it very far, the man grabbed him and lifted him up.

The wolf king howled a few times, then left in another direction. His instincts told him, he couldn’t possible mess with the man in front of him. So no matter how much he might have liked the little thing, he had no choice but take his pack away from him, especially since all he felt towards the child was simply curiosity.

The man lifted the child, and said grudgingly, “Such a sensible wolf, and now I don’t have wolf meat to eat.”

“AHH—” The child was struggling in the air.

The man turned the child around to face him. He examined the child briefly, and murmured puzzledly, “You are indeed about five years of age… how come you can’t walk and you can’t talk? Don’t tell me you’re retarded?”

He looked towards the child’s face, and dismissed that previous thought, because the child had intelligent eyes, and his limbs were moving just fine, not to mention he could make sounds just fine. The child did not look like he was born with any defects.

He looked closely, and the child’s eyes drew his attention. The color was fairly light, and it looked like a thin layer of dust. Under the shine of the moonlight, they were emitting a warm silver color.

The child looked rather delicate; his oval face, delicate white skin, crescent brows, and those intelligent eyes made it hard to imagine someone would be so cruel to abandon a child like this.

The child trembled. The cloth on his body had already fallen off. He could do nothing except grasp tightly to the person in front of him, trying to obtain whatever warmth possible.

The man smiled slightly. He took off his robe, and wrapped the child with it. He said as he walked, “My name is Gle, but it’s not important, because you can only address me formally as ‘The Leader’.”

Even though the child could not understand him, Gle still spoke tirelessly.

At this time, the child finally did not seem to feel cold anymore. He raised his head and stared at Gle, curiously listened to the strange syllables he was sounding off, while making an occasional “ah, ah” sounds as he tried to imitate. Despite the child being fairly emotionless, his flashing silver eyes suggested he was actually happy.

After he repeated it a few times, the child was indeed trying to pronounce “Silver Moon”, but no matter how much the child tried, he could only make an “Si” sound.

Gle smiled with a care and said, “Silver Moon, you have to learn quickly; otherwise, you will suffer, understood?”

The child didn’t understand, but in the following years, he understood completely. To the words “learn quickly” and “suffering”, no one knew better than him.

* * *

“Send these children to the wolf section for training.” Gle commanded casually.

“Wolf section?” The few subordinates stared at one another, and one of them said hurriedly, “Leader, the wolf section is for the sixteen year-olds to train. Out of these children, only about two of them have reached the age. Did you mean to send those who have reached sixteen or…”

Gle yelled angrily, “All of them!”

Everyone’s face turned pale, but no one dared to say anything else against Gle, because he was their Leader, the head of the Assassin organization, the one and only head of this organization, from the past to the present.

The Assassin organization had existed for hundreds of years.

The person who opened his mouth was Cuilin, the training instructors for new Assassins. He still couldn’t understand, why the Leader had been, in recent years, extremely anxious, to the point where he had been condensing ten years of training into five, and the training procedure had been even more rigorous than before — one must understand, the Assassin organization’s training had already been rigorous before.

The children they’ve purchased recently had mostly been “wasted”, and even Cuilin felt a bit heartbroken seeing all this.

Many of the children had potentials, but even for them, running into such cruel training, they could not survive. The training was not even designed for anyone to survive through; its intent was obviously to kill all of them.

No one survived one year of it — well, no, there was one exception. His name was Silver Moon, and he lived through all five years of it; he was the youngest child of them all.

Cuilin sometimes felt this was all because of Silver Moon. The Leader’s attitude towards him was unique. Even though he looked like he didn’t care, and Silver Moon lived and trained with all the other children, but after every tragic training session, the Leader’s eyes always looked towards Silver Moon first.

Silver Moon was the child Gle carried back himself. When he first got here, he was only five, and he knew neither how to talk nor walk. But within half a year, he had learnt so much to be considered no different from the other children.

“Outstanding talent” was not enough to describe this child. Cuilin sometimes felt this child wasn’t even human — perhaps a demi-god, or perhaps a demon, but definitely no ordinary human. How could a child not even ten years of age could be so strong? Even the moves the fifteen year-olds take ten days to learn, he mastered them in a day. But if this wasn’t the case, Silver Moon couldn’t live through these five years of training.

Perhaps the Leader feared this child? Cuilin thought to himself, but he felt that, since the Leader had always done what he pleased, if he actually did fear the kid, he would’ve killed him already, and it would be impossible for the child to be still alive.

Cuilin couldn’t refrain from reminding him, “Leader, in the last five years, not a single Assassin apprentice passed. If this continues for a few more years, we may have a problem with replacements.”

He really felt he had no choice. Otherwise, in a few years, if there really were a problem, the Leader would still put blame on him. If that happens, decapitating would be his best way of dying.

Gle frowned slightly, and made everyone’s heart beat out of their chests, fearing they would end up like the Assassin apprentices in the recent years.

“Send Silver Moon alone to the wolf section.”

Everyone seemed to relaxed slightly then, but Cuilin secretly sighed. His age made him unsuitable for carrying out assassinate missions, and the practice of graduating by killing your master in the organization did not apply to such a basic training instructor such as himself, so he had no worries about whether Silver Moon would take his life once he had became a full-fledged Assassin.

As such, he really treated Silver Moon as his student. Such extraordinary student was enough to make all his instructor extremely proud.

But Silver Moon was only ten years old; the dangers of the wolf section… was perhaps enough to cause him to lose such an extraordinary student. The instructor secretly felt a bit frustrated.

Suddenly, they heard a “cling” sound, and a blinding silver light was flashing on the ground. Everyone widened their eyes, realizing a silver stick thrown on the ground and its length was shorter than an arm’s length.

“This stick and knife is named ‘Broken Silver’; take this weapon to Silver Moon.” Gle stood up, and began to laugh, “If he survives this time, I will make him the top Assassin of Shalong Hall!”

Hearing the call, the figure who was practicing basic knife skills stopped. He turned around, and performed a salute to the instructor, then raised his head. The young face was delicate and clean, his eyes were glittering with silver light, and the black hair tied behind his head was dark as the night. He looked nothing like an apprentice Assassin, but instead more like a child everyone would love.

Silver Moon hesitated, and received the thing brimming with silver light from the instructor’s hand. He asked with surprise, “The Leader bestowed this upon me?”

Cuilin nodded.

Silver Moon lowered his head, and carefully examined the weapon he received — it was a short stick brimming with silver light. He touched it lightly with his fingers, and he seemed to have noticed something. He twisted the body of the weapon slightly, and unsheathed a dagger from within. The sharp dagger with the width shorter than two fingers glimmered with light from its edge.

“This stick and dagger is called ‘Broken Silver’.”

Cuilin told him the name of the weapon. Nevertheless, he did not understand why the Leader would give him such a weapon. Although the weapon could be used as two ways, as a blunt weapon and as a dagger, but Assassins only needed to kill, so a blunt weapon was hardly needed compared to a sharp edge. To him, dagger was the only true weapon to Assassins.

Additionally, Broken Silver’s appearance also was unfitting for an Assassin. Assassins generally hide in the dark, but Broken Silver’s glimmering light could be seen from a mile away, and it would not be conducive for hiding.

Cuilin could never understand this apprentice’s way of thinking. When Silver Moon was first thrown over to him, he had frequently wanted to run off to look for the Leader. For some reason, he had some sort of deep attachment to the Leader. Even the five years of cruel training had not change his attachment.

Had he not known the Leader spoiled his own children so much, and would never treat his own children as cruelly as this, Cuilin might even think Silver Moon was the Leader’s love child. The child being attached to his own father would have made sense.

“Use it to practice ‘Windborne Dagger’.” Cuilin said calmly, “You’ve only used daggers before, perhaps you aren’t used to this stick and dagger.”

Silver Moon answered with “Yes, sir”, then began to practice.

Cuilin suddenly realized there was no such thing as “not being used to” with this child. He held the dagger in his right hand, and the scabbard in his left as if he was holding two daggers, and his movements were even smoother than usual, when he only had a single dagger. He moved through the air elegantly and quickly. Had it not been the weapons in his hand, an onlooker might mistakenly think he was dancing.

‘Perhaps Windborne Blade had always been a move requiring both hands? Then the reason the Leader would bestow this weapon upon him… perhaps Silver Moon really might live through this?’

Silver Moon replied with a bit of uncertainty, “Instructor, didn’t you verify my training three days ago, and it was half past level two?”

Reaching half past level two at the age of ten was unfathomable. Even many graduated Assassins could only reach that point. But now, half past two was not enough!

This child was too young, and his young physique made him relatively weak, so he had to use Ki to make up for it. For the next test he was facing, the amount made up by level two and a half was far from enough!

Cuilin crouched, and held tightly to Silver Moon’s shoulders to say, “Today I’ll teach you ‘Heart of Consciousness’. This is ordinarily a lesson only taught to those who are at least sixteen years of age, and whether they could learn it largely depended on their innate talent. Nevertheless, you must learn it within three days, do you understand?”

Silver Moon looked at his instructor’s expression with surprise, because it did not look as cold as his usual face. Nevertheless, he obediently nodded and said, “Understood.”

Cuilin did not feel reassured. He felt this child did not understand the seriousness of the matter at hand. He then said solemnly, “If you do not learn Heart of Consciousness within three days, you will die; do you understand?”

Silver Moon looked at his instructor with glimmering eyes, and repeated, “Understood.” He then followed that up quietly with: “Like everyone else before who died, I understand.”

Cuilin suddenly felt stupid. How could Silver Moon not understand? Over the past five years, number of children had died next to him had far surpassed the total number of apprentice dying in the twenty years before that. So how could a child, who grew up drenched in death, not understand he might die?

“Instructor, don’t worry, I will learn it in three days.” Silver Moon nodded.

Cuilin’s instincts told him it was impossible to learn Heart of Consciousness in three days, but he looked at the child in front of him with anticipation, hoping the child could bring him yet another miracle, because…